THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


SKETCHES  OF 
BOOKSELLERS 

OF  OTHER  DAYS 
* 


BOOKS  BY  THE  SAME    WRITER. 


COPYRIGHT.  National  and  International,  with 
some  Remarks  on  the  Position  of  Authors 
and  Publishers.  8vo,  1879.  Second  edition, 
sewed,  1883. 

FRANK'S   RANCH;     or,    My   Holidays  in  the 

Rockies,   1885. 

This  book  went  through  Five  Editions.  The  fifth 
edition  is  quite  out  of  print,  but  a  few  copies  of  the 
third  edition  may  still  be  had. 

AN  AMATEUR  ANGLER'S  DAYS  IN  DOVE- 
DALE.  Imp.  32010. 

HOW  STANLEY  WROTE  "IN  DARKEST 
AFRICA."  Crown  8vo,  with  numerous  Illustra- 
tions, boards. 

FRESH    WOODS     AND     PASTURES     NEW. 

i6mo. 

DAYS  IN  CLOVER.     i6mo. 

BY  MEADOW  AND  STREAM.  Pleasant 
Memories  of  Pleasant  Places. 

25  numbered  copies,  printed  on  Japanese  vellum, 
and  250  copies,  India  proofs,  all  sold.  Cheap 
edition,  illustrated,  cloth,  gilt  edges.  Boards. 

ON  A  SUNSHINE  HOLYDAY.  Large  Paper, 
edition.  Cheap  edition. 

AN  OLD  MAN'S  HOLIDAYS.  Fcap.  8vo,  cloth. 
Second  edition,  witli  portrait  (edition  all  sold). 


SAMUEL    RICHARDSON,    1689-1761. 
From  a  picture  by  Chamberlin. 


SKETCHES  OF 
BOOKSELLERS 

OF  OTHER  DAYS 

JKBY 
^ 
E^MARSTON 


NEW  YORK 
CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

MDCCCCI 


CHISWICK   PRESS  :   CHARLES   WHITTINGHAM   AND   CO. 
TOOKS  COURT,  CHANCERY  LANE,  LONDON. 


2>e&icateJ> 

TO 
THE   BOOKSELLERS 

OF 
TO-DAY 


PAGE 

I 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER 

I.  JACOB  TONSON— 1656-1736      .     .     . 

II.  THOMAS  GUY— 1644-1724 15 

III.  JOHN  DUNTON — 1659-1733 29 

IV.  SAMUEL  RICHARDSON — 1689-1761    ...  50 
V.  THOMAS  GENT — 1691-1778 70 

VI.  ALICE  GUY  (wife  of  Thomas  Gent)    .     .     .  103 

VII.  WILLIAM  HUTTON — 1723-1815    ....  115 

VIII.  JAMES  LACK INGTON— 1746-1815  ....  149 


LIST   OF   PORTRAITS 

PAGE 

SAMUEL  RICHARDSON Frontispiece 

JACOB  TONSON face    \ 

FACSIMILE  OF  BOWYBR'S  PRINTING  BILL  TO 

TONSON „      8 

THOMAS  GUY „     15 

JOHN  DUNTON ,,    29 

SAMUEL  RICHARDSON  (House  at  Fulham)    .     .    ,,     67 

THOMAS  GENT ,,7° 

WILLIAM  HUTTON ,,  115 

JAMES  LACKINGTON    . 149 


NOTE 

llNCE  the  death  of  the  late  Mr. 
George  Murray  Smith,  who  was  a 
few  months  my  senior,  I  am  told 
that  I  am  the  oldest  London  pub- 
lisher. To  be  called  the  doyen  of  the  trade  is  of 
that  kind  of  distinction  which  one  can  accept 
without  pride,  and  adopt  without  vanity.  It  is 
a  distinction  to  which  everyone  is  heir  who  only 
lives  long  enough,  and  it  is  presumably  one  which 
no  one  specially  envies  or  covets,  seeing  that 

"...  barring  all  pother  'twixt  one  and  the  other, 
We  shall  all  be  kings  in  our  turn." 

An  intercourse  of  sixty  years  and  more  with 
Books  and  Booksellers,  Authors  and  Publishers, 
gives  me  almost  the  title  to  think  that  I  am  in 
my  own  person  a  kind  of  link  between  the 
Publishers  of  to-day  and  the  Booksellers  of  the 
eighteenth  century  of  whom  I  have  endeavoured 
to  give  some  glimpses.  My  late  partner,  Samp- 
son Low,  was  a  youth  of  twenty  when  my  last 


Xll  NOTE 

two  subjects,  William  Hutton  and  James  Lack- 
ington,  died  in  1815  ;  and  I  was  born  not  many 
years  afterwards ;  this  perhaps  may  serve  as  an 
excuse  for  writing  the  following  SKETCHES  OF 
BOOKSELLERS  OF  OTHER  DAYS  which  have  re- 
cently appeared  in  "The  Publishers' Circular." 
The  original  idea  was  to  condense  into  a  read- 
able sketch  the  main  features  of  the  "  Lives " 
treated  of.  In  bringing  them  together  into  a 
volume  I  have  tried  to  make  them  a  little  more 
complete  by  adding  matter  here  and  there,  which 
for  want  of  space  did  not  appear  in  the  serial 
issue.  I  have  gathered  the  material  from  various 
sources,  chiefly  from  the  autobiographies  of  those 
who  have  written  an  account  of  their  own  lives  ; 
for  the  rest  I  am  indebted  to  the  industry  of 
Mr.  Charles  Knight,  Mr.  W.  Roberts,  "The 
Dictionary  of  National  Biography"  and  to  a 
curious  book  entitled  "  Fifty  Years'  Recollec- 
tions of  an  old  Bookseller."  I  have  also  found 
material  in  Nichols'  "  Literary  Anecdotes  of  the 
Eighteenth  Century"  (nine volumes),  in  Southey's 
"  The  Doctor,"  and  in  other  works.  I  am  also 
indebted  to  Mr.  W.  H.  Peet  for  the  loan  of 
several  books  pertaining  to  the  subjects. 

April 25,  1901.  E.  M. 


JACOB   TONSON,    1656-1736. 
From  the  painting  by  Kneller. 


SKETCHES    OF    BOOKSELLERS 

OF  OTHER  DAYS 
I.  JACOB  TONSON,  1656-1736 

|F  all  the  booksellers  of  the  olden 
time  whose  figures  stand  out  from 
the  depths  of  the  shadowy  past  per- 
haps the  most  conspicuous  is  the 
figure  of  JACOB  TONSON.  Doubtless  there  have 
lived  in  the  past  centuries  hundreds  of  old  book- 
sellers, more  worthy,  more  learned,  and  more 
beloved  in  their  generation  than  Jacob  Tonson, 
who,  after  pursuing  the  even  tenour  of  their  way, 
have  passed  into  the  shadowy  world,  not  unwept 
but  at  least  unsung  and  unrecorded  in  the  pages 
of  history,  as  unknown  to  posterity  as  if  they 


2  SKETCHES  OF  BOOKSELLERS 

had  never  lived;  their  good  deeds  lie  buried 
with  their  bones,  and  they  did  no  evil  that  should 
live  after  them ;  that,  indeed,  is  the  common 
fate  of  many  of  the  worthiest  of  human  beings. 

Only  a  few  here  and  there  of  the  shadows  of 
old  booksellers  have  been  evolved  from  the  sur- 
rounding darkness,  either  through  their  promi- 
nent connection  with  some  celebrated  writer 
who  may  have  belauded  or  besmirched  them 
into  lasting  fame  or  lasting  infamy,  or  else  their 
earthly  careers  have  been  brought  to  light  by  the 
industry  of  such  writers  as  the  late  Mr.  Peter 
Cunningham,  Mr.  Charles  Knight,  Mr.  W. 
Roberts,  or  Mr.  Henry  Curwen — and  thus  it 
was  that  the  life  and  doings  of  Jacob  Tonson 
have  been  carried  down  for  more  than  two  hun- 
dred years. 

"  The  Dictionary  of  National  Biography  "  de- 
votes considerable  space  to  the  Tonsons  (for 
there  were  three  of  them)  and  other  old  book- 
sellers; much  of  the  same  information  some- 
what differently  told  is  to  be  found  in  each  of 
the  authorities  above  mentioned,  but  the  "  Dic- 
tionary of  National  Biography  "  is  the  most  con- 
cise. It  is  from  these  authorities  and  from  John 
Nichols'  "  Literary  Anecdotes  of  the  Eighteenth 


JACOB   TONSON  3 

Century,"  that  the  information  given  below  has 
been  mostly  obtained. 

Jacob  Tonson,  like  John  Gilpin,  was  born  "  a 
citizen  of  famous  London  town,"  about  the  year 
1656 — the  younger  of  two  sons  of  Jacob  Tonson, 
barber-surgeon  and  citizen,  who  died  in  the  year 
1 66 1,  leaving  ^100  to  each  of  his  two  sons  and 
three  daughters.  "  Ah  !  Jacob,"  once  said  his 
father  to  him,  "  if  I  hadn't  a  noble  profession 
for  you  to  follow  I  should  like  to  see  you  a 
bookseller."  Young  Jacob  had  a  decided  aver- 
sion to  the  business  carried  on  "  under  the  pole." 
He  had  employed  most  of  his  holiday  hours  in 
reading  plays  and  poems,  and  so  two  years  after- 
wards he  was  apprenticed,  on  the  5th  of  June, 
1670,  to  Thomas  Basset,  bookseller  ("probably 
in  Little  Britain,"  says  W.  Roberts).  He  was 
then  fourteen  years  old,  and  after  seven  years  he 
was  admitted  to  his  freedom  in  the  Stationers' 
Company,  and  immediately  afterwards  started  in 
business  with  his  capital  of  ^100,  following  the 
example  of  his  elder  brother  who  had  com- 
menced business  as  a  bookseller  the  year  before 
in  a  shop  within  Gray's  Inn  Gate.  Jacob's  shop 
was  for  many  years  under  "The  Judge's  Head," 
which  he  set  up  as  his  sign  in  Chancery  Lane, 


4  SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

close  to  the  corner  of  Fleet  Street.  Had  he 
begun  business  a  few  years  earlier  he  would  have 
been  a  near  neighbour  of  Izaak  Walton,  but 
they  probably  never  met,  for  old  Izaak  was  nearly 
ninety  years  of  age,  and  had  left  Fleet  Street 
before  young  Jacob  started,  and  one  can  hardly 
imagine  two  characters  so  widely  divergent  as 
the  tall  and  dignified  Izaak  and  the  short  "  bull-  x 
faced  "Jacob. 

Walton's  printer  and  publisher  was  Richard 
Marriott,  in  St.  Dunstan's  Churchyard  close  by. 

Jacob  Tonson  was  very  ambitious  of  getting 
in  touch  with  authors  of  the  highest  standing, 
and  in  his  twenty-third  year,  1679  (four  years 
before  Walton  died),  he  made  the  bold  venture 
of  purchasing  Dryden's  "  Troilus  and  Cressida  " 
for  ^20,  which  sum  he  had  to  borrow  ;  and  thus  ^ 
he  became  Dryden's  publisher,  and  with  Dry- 
den  he  seems  to  have  continued  on  more  or  less 
friendly  terms  till  the  death  of  the  poet.  Before 
this  year  he  had  published  some  of  the  plays  of 
Otway  and  Tate.  At  this  period  he  is  imagined 
by  Charles  Knight,  who  endeavours  to  realize 
the  shadow  of  the  figure  and  deportment  of  the 
young  bookseller  in  his  twenty-third  year  as 
"  short  and  stout,"  and  twenty  years  later  Pope  * 


JACOB   TONSON  5 

calls  him  "little  Jacob."  It  was  not  till  after 
his  death  that  he  was  immortalized  in  "The 
Dunciad,"  as  "  left-legged  Jacob." 

It  was  in  1683  that  Tonson  became  the  pur- 
chaser from  Brabazon  Ailmer,  the  assignee  of 
Samuel  Simmons,  of  one  half  of  his  right  in 
"  Paradise  Lost,"  and  of  the  remaining  half  in 
1690.  Milton  at  that  time  was  very  unpopular, 
and  Tonson  waited  four  years  after  his  purchase 
before  he  ventured  to  bring  it  out  by  subscrip- 
tion. Dryden  had  spoken  of  it  as  one  of  the 
greatest,  most  noble,  and  most  sublime  poems 
which  either  the  age  or  nation  had  produced. 
It  was  an  immediate  success — and  thus  Jacob 
Tonson  identified  himself  with  Milton  by  making 
"  Paradise  Lost "  popular. 

He  brought  out  the  fourth  edition  in  1688,  in 
folio,  with  a  portrait  by  White.  It  was  as  a 
motto  under  this  portrait  that  Dryden  wrote  the 
well-known  lines  : 

"  Three  poets  in  three  distant  ages  born, 
Greece,  Italy,  England,  did  adorn, 
The  first  in  loftiness  of  mind  surpassed  ; 
The  next  in  majesty,  in  both  the  last. 
The  force  of  nature  could  no  further  go, 
To  make  a  third  she  joined  the  former  two. 

In  1684  he  brought  out  a  volume  of  miscel- 


6  SKETCHES   OF    BOOKSELLERS 

laneous  poems  under  Dryden's  editorship.  Other 
volumes  followed  in  1685,  1693,  1694,  and  1703. 
The  series  was  called  indifferently  Dryden's  or 
Tonson's  Miscellany. 

Dryden's  "Translation  of  Virgil"  was  pub- 
lished by  Tonson  in  July,  1697,  by  subscription, 
and  its  publication  gave  rise  to  serious  financial 
differences  between  the  poet  and  his  publisher. 
It  has  been  stated  that  on  one  occasion,  the 
bookseller  having  refused  to  advance  money,  the 
poet  sent  him  the  following  triplet,  with  the  sig- 
nificant message :  "  Tell  the  dog  that  he  who  x 
wrote  these  lines  can  write  more  : 

"  With  leering  looks,  bull-faced,  and  freckled  fair ;       f* 
With  two  left  legs  and  Judas-coloured  hair, 
And  frowzy  pores,  that  taint  the  ambient  air. " 

(From  "Faction  Displayed.'1'") 

These  lines  were  never  intended  by  Dryden 
to  be  transmitted  to  posterity — but  a  Tory  satir- 
ist who  gave  vent  to  his  spleen  by  including 
them  in  a  poem,  ridiculed  both  Tonson  and  the 
Kit-Cat  Club.  Pope  has  stated  that  Dryden 
cleared  every  way  about  ,£1,200  by  his  "  Virgil."  - 

Subsequently  author  and  publisher  became 
more  friendly,  and  on  the  publication  of  the 
volume  of  "  Fables  " — which  contained  the  cele- 


JACOB   TONSON  7 

brated  "  Ode  to  St.  Cecilia,"  commonly  known 
as  "  Alexander's  Feast,"  for  which  he  paid  the 

/  author  two  hundred  and  fifty  guineas,  to  be 
made  up  to  ^300  when  a  second  edition  was 
demanded — Dryden  wrote  to  Tonson :  "  I  hope 
it  has  done  you  service  and  will  do  more." 
Dryden  died  in  May,  1700. 

Nichols  says  :  "  However  plain  in  his  appear- 
ance, of  which  the  above  satirical  description 
may  be  supposed  to  have  been  a  caricature,  he 
was  certainly  a  worthy  man,  and  was  not  only  re- 
spected as  an  honest  and  opulent  tradesman,  but 
after  Dryden's  death  lived  in  familiar  intimacy 
with  some  of  the  most  considerable  persons  of 
the  early  part  of  the  last  century." 

Before  the  end  of  the  century  Tonson  removed 
from  Chancery  Lane  to  Gray's  Inn  Gate,  the 
shop  previously  occupied  by  his  brother,  who 
had  died.  Here  he  dropped  the  sign  of  "  The 
Judge's  Head,"  and  adopted  "  The  Shakspere's 
Head."  Charles  Knight  says :  "  He  was  truly 

X  the  first  bookseller  who  threw  open  Shakspere  to 
a  reading  public.  ...     In  1709  Tonson  pro- 
duced Rowe's  edition  in  seven  volumes  octavo." 
Jacob  Tonson  and  his  successors  of  the  same 
name  quite  justified  the  sign  of  "  The  Shakspere's 


8  SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

Head,"  for  the  various  editions  edited  by  Rowe, 
Pope,  Theobald,  Warburton,  Johnson  and  Capell 
were  all  associated  with  the  name  of  Tonson. 

Jacob  had  no  children,  and  seemingly  never  x: 
married  ;  he  took  his  nephew  Jacob  into  partner- 
ship. 

In  the  year  1700  Tonson  was  instrumental  in 
founding  the  Kit-Cat  Club,  of  which  he  became 
secretary.  This  club  was  composed  of  the  most 
distinguished  wits  and  statesmen  among  the 
Whigs.  The  meetings  were  first  held  at  a  shop 
in  Shire  Lane  kept  by  Christopher  Cat,  who  ex-  X 
celled  in  making  mutton  pies,  which  were  regu- 
larly part  of  the  entertainment.  In  1703  he  built 
a  room  at  Barn  Elms,  Barnes,  for  the  use  of  the 
club.  This  room  was  adorned  with  the  portraits 
of  the  Kit-Cat  club,  painted  by  Sir  Godfrey 
Kneller,  on  canvas  of  a  special  size  which  has 
always  since  been  called  Kit-cat,  viz.,  36  inches 
by  28  inches.  A  splendid  volume,  containing 
43  portraits,  beginning  with  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller  *\ 
and  ending  with  Tonson,  was  published  in  1735 
by  J.  Tonson  in  the  Strand.  The  plates  were  en- 
graved by  T.  Faber.  In  a  poem  on  the  club, 
attributed  to  Sir  Richard  Blackmore,  these  lines 
occur  : 


9    -2 


JACOB  TONSON  9 

"  One  night  in  seven,  at  this  convenient  seat, 
Indulgent  Boca)  (Jacob)  did  the  muses  treat." 

This  year  (1703)  he  went  to  Holland  to  obtain 
paper  and  engravings  for  the  fine  edition  of 
"  Caesar's  Commentaries,"  which  he  published  in 
royal  folio,  with  eighty-seven  plates,  under  the 
editorial  care  of  Dr.  Samuel  Clark  in  1712. 
Nichols  describes  this  edition  "  as  perhaps  the 
most  magnificent  work  that  has  been  issued  by 
the  English  press."  The  manufacture  of  paper  in 
England  at  this  period  had  become  confined  to 
the  commonest  sorts,  chiefly  used  for  packing, 
and  the  types  used  in  the  better  English  printing 
offices  were  imported  from  Holland.  In  1705  he 
published  "  Addison's  Remarks  on  several  parts 
of  Italy";  and  in  1706  he  became  acquainted 
with  "young  Pope"  and  proposed  the  publication 
of  his  "  Pastorals,"  which  ultimately  appeared  in 
the  "  Miscellany  "  in  1709. 

Writing  of  Tonson's  "  Miscellany  Poems  "  in 
a  letter  dated  May  2oth,  1709,  Mr.  Pope  says: 
"  I  shall  be  satisfied  if  I  can  lose  my  time  agree- 
ably this  way,  without  losing  my  reputation.  I  can 
be  content  with  a  bare  saving  game,  without  being 
thought  an  eminent  hand  (with  which  little  Jacob 
has  graciously  dignified  his  adventurers  and  volun- 


10         SKETCHES  OF  BOOKSELLERS 

teers  in  poetry).     Jacob  creates  poets,  as  kings  /- 
do  knights ;  not  for  their  honour,  but  for  their 
money."    Mr.  Wycherley  in  reply,  with  an  in- 
decent allusion  to  scripture,  observes,  "  You  will 
make  'Jacob's  Ladder'  raise  you  to  immortality."  x 

In  a  letter  to  Steele,  Pope  says :  "  I  should 
myself  be  much  better  pleased  if  I  were  told  you 
called  me  your  little  friend,  than  if  you  compli- 
mented me  with  the  title  of  a  great  genius  or  an 
eminent  hand,  as  Jacob  does  all  his  writers." 

In  1 7 1 2  he  removed  to  "The  Shakspere  Head," 
opposite  Catherine  Street,  in  the  Strand.  In  1 7 1 1 
Swift,  Addison,  and  Steele  met  at  young  Tonson's, 
and  from  1712  Tonson,  in  conjunction  with 
Samuel  Buckley,  became  the  publisher  of  the  /; 
"  Spectator."  In  1712  Addison  and  Steele  sold 
all  their  interest  in  one  half  of  the  copies  of  the 
first  seven  volumes  of  the  "Spectator"  to  Tonson, 
junior,  for  ^575,  and  all  rights,  and  the  other  ^ 
half  to  Buckley  for  a  like  sum.  In  October  1714 
Buckley  resigned  his  half  share  to  Tonson, 
junior. 

In  consequence  of  his  attachment  to  the  Whigs 
he  obtained,  in  1719-1720,  a  grant  to  himself  and 
his  nephew  Jacob  Tonson,  junior,  of  the  office  of  * 
stationer,  bookbinder,  bookseller  and  printer,  to 


JACOB  TONSON  II 

some  of  the  principal  public  Boards,  and  great 
offices  for  the  term  of  forty  years,  and  in  1722  he 
assigned  and  made  over  the  whole  benefit  of  this 
grant  to  his  nephew,  who  in  1733  obtained  from 
Sir  Robert  Walpole  a  further  grant  of  forty  years. 
This  lucrative  business  remained  in  the  Tonson 
family  till  1800. 

In  a  dialogue  between  Tonson  and  Congreve, 
published  in  1714,  in  a  small  volume  of  poems 
by  Rowe,  there  is  a  pleasant  description  of 
Tonson  before  he  had  grand  associates  : 

"  While  in  your  early  days  of  reputation, 
You  for  blue  garters  had  not  such  a  passion, 
While  yet  you  did  not  live,  as  now  your  trade  is, 
To  drink  with  noble  lords  and  toast  their  ladies, 
Thou,  Jacob  Tonson,  were,  to  my  conceiving, 
The  cheerfullest,  best,  honest  fellow  living." 

Tonson  seems  to  have  been  fortunate,  not  only 
in  his  publishing  ventures,  but  he  was  congratu- 
f  lated  on  his  luck  in  South  Sea  stock  ;  he  made 
V.  a  large  sum  also  in  connection  with  Law's  Mis- 
sissippi Scheme. 

In  1720  he  gave  up  business  and  bought  an 
estate  called  "The  Hazells,"  at  Ledbury,  in 
Herefordshire. 

Jacob  Tonson  died  in  1736,  and  is  reported, 
according  to  Nichols,  on  his  deathbed  to  have 


12          SKETCHES  OF  BOOKSELLERS 

said :  "  I  wish  I  had  the  world  to  begin  again,  x^ 
because    then    I    should   have   died   worth    a 
hundred  thousand  pounds,  whereas  now  I  die 
worth  only  ^£80,000."     Nichols,   however,   re- 
garded it  as  a  very  improbable  story,  for,  in  spite 
of  Dryden's  complaints,  Tonson  seems  to  have  ?< 
been  a  generous  man  for  the  times  and  to  have 
fully  earned  his  title  of  the  "  Prince  of  Book- 
sellers." 

Dunton,  a  contemporary  publisher,  says  of 
Tonson  :  "  He  is  a  very  good  judge  of  persons 
and  authors  ;  and,  as  there  is  nobody  more  com- 
pletely qualified  to  give  their  opinion  of  another, 
so  there  is  no  one  who  does  it  with  a  more  severe 
exactness  or  with  less  partiality,  for,  to  do  Mr. 
Tonson  justice,  he  speaks  his  mind  upon  all  oc- 
casions and  will  flatter  nobody." 

Pope,  writing  of  him  to  Lord  Oxford,  said  that 
if  he  would  come  to  see  him  he  would  show  him 
a  phenomenon  worth  seeing :  "  Old  Jacob  Ton- 
son,  who  is  the  perfect  image  and  likeness  of 
Bayle's  Dictionary ;  so  full  of  matter,  secret  his-  * 
tory,  and  wit  and  spirit,  at  almost  fourscore." 

The  elder  Tonson's  death  at  Ledbury,  April  > 
2nd,  1736,  was  preceded  by  that  of  his  nephew, 
November  25th,  1735 — who  at  his  death  wasde- 


JACOB  TONSON  13 

scribed  as  worth  ^100,000,  whilst  the  uncle's 
estate  is  mentioned  as  ^"40,000. 

Old  Jacob  made  his  will  December  2nd,  1735, 
after  his  nephew's  death,  in  which  he  appointed 
his  great-nephew  Jacob  (the  third  of  the  name) 
his  executor  and  residuary  legatee.  This  Jacob 
— the  third  bookseller  of  the  name — of  whom 
Dr.  Johnson  speaks  as  "  the  late  amiable  Mr. 
Tonson,"  carried  on  business  first  in  the  old  shop 
opposite  Catherine  Street,  in  the  Strand,  but 
latterly  he  removed  to  the  other  side  of  the  way, 
where  he  died,  without  issue,  March  3151,  1767. 

According  to  Curwen,  Tonson's  only  rival  in 
business  was  Bernard  Lintot,  and  he  gives  an 
amusing  anecdote  of  competition  between  these 
two  worthies  for  a  work  by  Dr.  Young.  Both 
had  made  an  offer  for  the  work.  The  poet  an- 
swered  both  letters  the  same  morning,  but  un- 
fortunately cross-directed  them ;  in  the  one  in- 
tended for  Tonson  he  said  that  Lintot  was  so 
great  a  scoundrel  that  printing  with  him  was  out 
of  the  question,  and  in  Lintot's  that  Tonson  was 
an  old  rascal. 

W.  Roberts,  whose  account  of  the  Tonsons  is 
written  in  a  kindly  spirit,  says  of  Jacob  :  "  Lin- 
gering for  a  moment  or  two  over  the  character  of 


14          SKETCHES  OF  BOOKSELLERS 

old  Jacob  Tonson,  we  find  it  to  be  indubitably 
that  of  a  thorough  tradesman,  not  of  a  hero,  but 
certainly  of  a  generous,  hearty,  and  good  man, 
with  a  plentiful  sprinkling  of  the  worldly  in  his 
composition." 


THOMAS   GUY,    1644-1724. 
Founder  of  Guy's  Hospital. 

From  the  statue  by  J .  Bacon,  R.A. 


II.  THOMAS   GUY,  1644-1724 

HE  fame  of  Thomas  Guy  does  not 
rest  upon  him  as  a  bookseller, 
but  as  a  philanthropist ;  it  is  true 
that  by  great  industry,  great  fru- 
gality, and  great  tact  he  made  much  money  as 
a  bookseller,  but,  unlike  his  contemporary  Jacob 
Tonson,  he  did  not  seek  to  attach  his  name  to 
the  works  of  great  authors — such  as  Dryden, 
Pope,  and  Addison.  The  Bible  first  and  the 
Great  South  Sea  Bubble  next  were  the  chief 
sources  of  his  wealth.  "The  Dictionary  of 
National  Biography"  states,  however,  that  he 
published  numerous  books,  and  his  imprint  is 
not  so  rare  as  has  been  represented. 

From  his  earliest  days  he  seems  to  have  re- 
solved to  be  rich,  not,  according  to  all  accounts 
that  I  can  gather,  for  the  sake  of  being  rich,  but 


1 6          SKETCHES  OF   BOOKSELLERS 

from  a  real  desire  to  do  good  in  his  generation 
and  the  generations  that  should  come  after  him. 
Mr.  Charles  Knight,  quoting  mainly  from  Mr. 
William  Maitland's  memoir  of  Guy  prefixed  to 
his  account  of  Guy's  Hospital,  published  in  his 
"History  of  London"  in  1739,  tells  us  that 
Guy  was  born  in  the  north-east  corner  of 
Pritchard's  Alley,  in  Fair  Street,  Horselydown, 
in  the  year  1645,  DUt  tne  precise  date  is  not 
given.  The  statue  says  1644. 

He  was  the  son  of  Thomas  Guy,  citizen  and 
carpenter,  who  was  by  profession  a  lighterman 
and  coal-dealer  in  Horselydown,  Southwark ;  he 
died  when  his  son  was  eight  years  old.  His 
mother  was  a  native  of  Tamworth,  and  after  her 
husband's  death  she  returned  to  that  town,  and 
soon  afterwards  married  again. 

Mr.  Roberts  states  that  a  writer  in  the 
"Gentleman's  Magazine,"  1784,  page  340,  says 
that  Tamworth  was  the  place  of  young  Guy's 
birth ;  but  the  probabilities  are  in  favour  of 
Mr.  Maitland's  more  precise  statement ;  the 
latter  authority  says  that  Mrs.  Guy  "  was  care- 
ful to  have  her  children  carefully  educated." 
Thomas's  education  from  the  age  of  eight  to 
eleven  was  in  all  probability  in  Tamworth. 


THOMAS  GUY  I/ 

He  was  bound  apprentice  September  2nd, 
1660,  to  John  Clarke,  a  bookseller,  in  the  porch 
of  Mercers'  Chapel,  Cheapside;  and  in  1668 
he  became  a  freeman  of  the  City  of  London 
and  of  the  Stationers'  Company ;  he  commenced 
business  with  a  capital  of  £200. 

Up  to  this  point  there  is  much  similarity  in 
the  careers  of  Guy  and  Tonson.  Both  were 
shrewd,  careful,  and  plodding,  and  both  started 
with  the  intention  of  amassing  wealth  through 
the  medium  of  the  business  in  which  they  had 
been  educated;  there  is,  however,  little  or  no 
evidence  to  show  that  either  of  them  possessed 
any  educational  advantages  or  literary  or  intel- 
lectual gifts  that  should  distinguish  them  from 
hundreds  of  their  fellow  tradesmen  who  have 
departed  and  left  no  trace  behind  them — Litera- 
ture happened  to  be  their  trade,  and  they  culti- 
vated it  at  first  doubtless  on  a  little  oatmeal, 
not  however  for  its  own  sake,  but  as  a  means  to 
bear  them  on  to  fortune. 

Tonson's  ambition  seems  to  me  to  have  been 
of  the  bullying,  blustering  sort,  which  eventually 
enabled  him  to  patronize  great  authors  and 
hob-a-nob  with  dukes  and  lords  at  the  Kit-Cat 
Club. 

c 


1 8          SKETCHES  OF   BOOKSELLERS 

"  Sweating  and  puffing  for  a  while  he  stood, 
And  then  broke  forth  in  this  insulting  mood  ; 
I  am  the  touchstone  of  all  modern  wit ; 
Without  my  stamp  in  vain  your  poets  write." 

(From  "Faction  Displayed") 

His  name  will  be  carried  down  to  remote 
generations  on  the  title-page  of  the  books  of  the 
greatest  writers  of  his  time,  not  as  a  great  bene- 
factor, but  as  a  fortunate  plodding  tradesman. 

Thomas    Guy's    ambition    to   make   money 
seems  to  me  to  have  been  of  the  purely  unselfish 
sort.     He  lived  penuriously,  and  grew  rich  with  A 
the  single  purpose  of  doing  good  with  his  riches. 

He  started  in  business  in  1668,  two  years 
after  the  Great  Fire,  in  a  little  newly-built  shop 
near  Stocks  Market.  The  shop  was  at  the  angle 
formed  by  Cornhill  and  Lombard  Street,  de- 
scribed by  Maitland  as  the  "  little  corner  shop." 

Charles  Knight  says  that  the  area  upon  which 
the  Mansion  House  now  stands  was  for  some 
centuries  the  market  for  butchers  and  fish- 
mongers, deriving  its  name  from  "  The  Stocks," 
which  were  set  up  in  the  public  thoroughfare 
for  the  punishment  of  evildoers.  The  whole 
place  was  swept  clear  by  the  Great  Fire  of  1666. 

The  position  which  Guy  had  chosen  was  an 
admirable  one.  Within  a  year  after  he  had 


THOMAS   GUY  19 

opened  his  shop  the  second  Exchange  was 
opened  with  great  pomp. 

Mr.  Knight  fancifully  portrays  young  Guy 
sitting  in  his  little  shop  amidst  his  small  stock 
of  books  of  the  value  of  ^200,  restless  at  the 
want  of  occupation,  and  envying  the  great  mer- 
chant adventurers  congregating  at  the  Exchange, 
whose  ships  brought  the  produce  of  every  land 
to  the  port  of  London. 

Mr.  Guy  was  a  good  Protestant,  and  as  he  sat 
in  his  shop,  too  often  unvisited  by  customers, 
he  meditated  frequently  on  the  large  trade  he 
could  command  if  it  was  in  his  power  to  offer 
godly  people  well-printed  and  cheap  Bibles. 

The  King's  printer  and  the  two  universities 
possessed  the  exclusive  privilege  of  printing  the 
Bible,  a  monopoly  which  still  remains  with  the 
Universities.  The  Oxford  Bibles  were  chiefly 
for  the  use  of  the  churches,  but  those  issued  by 
the  King's  printer  were  full  of  the  grossest  errors, 
which  caused  Thomas  Fuller  to  write,  under 
the  quaint  heading  "  Fye,  for  Shame  !  "  "  What 
is  but  carelessness  in  other  books  is  impiety 
in  setting  forth  of  the  Bible."  Maitland  re- 
lates that  at  the  time  when  Guy  opened  his 
shop  the  English  Bibles  printed  in  this  kingdom 


2O          SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

being  very  bad,  both  in  the  letter  and  paper, 
occasioned  divers  of  the  booksellers  in  this  city 
to  encourage  the  printing  thereof  in  Holland, 
with  curious  types  and  fine  paper,  and  they  im- 
ported vast  numbers  of  the  same,  to  their  no 
small  advantage. 

Mr.  Guy,  soon  becoming  acquainted  with  this 
profitable  commerce,  became  a  large  dealer 
therein.  Mr.  Knight,  in  his  imaginary  picture, 
says  that  Guy,  not  trusting  the  Dutch  com- 
positors, would  carefully  revise  the  proof  sheets 
so  that  they  should  not  print  such  terrible 
blunders  as  were  printed  in  the  Bible  of  1653  : 
"  Know  ye  not  that  the  unrighteous  shall  inherit  X, 
the  kingdom  of  God."  He  had  learned  from 
Mr.  Selden's  "  Table  Talk "  that  in  a  Bible 
printed  in  the  reign  of  Charles  I.  the  word  not  A 
was  left  out  of  the  seventh  commandment,  for 
which  blunder  the  printer  was  heavily  fined. 

The  "  Spectator "   wickedly   suggested   that,    < 
judging  from  the  morals  of  the  day,  very  many 
copies  must  have  got  into  continuous  circulation. 

It  was  found,  however,  that  this  trade  of  im- 
porting Bibles  from  Holland  was  injurious  to 
the  public  revenue  as  well  as  to  the  King's 
printer;  all  ways  and  means  were  devised  to 


THOMAS   GUY  21 

quash  it,  and  consequently,  owing  to  frequent 
seizures  and  prosecutions,  the  booksellers  became 
great  sufferers,  so  they  judged  a  further  pursuit 
thereof  inconsistent  with  their  interests.  They 
could  not  stand  out  against  the  power  of  the 
King's  printer  and  the  two  Universities,  although 
as  a  matter  of  fact  the  King's  printer  and  the 
Universities  were  not  by  any  means  in  a  state 
of  cordial  relationship. 

Thomas  Guy,  says  Mr.  Knight,  was  too  saga- 
cious a  man  to  resist  the  pretensions  of  powers 
so  influential  in  the  counsels  of  the  Stuarts. 
With  a  more  than  common  share  of  ability  and 
perseverance  he  finally  induced  the  University 
of  Oxford  to  contract  with  him  for  an  assign- 
ment of  their  privilege.  He  bought  type  from 
Holland  and  set  about  printing  Bibles  in  London, 
and  soon  established  a  large  trade  therein. 

In  the  first  two  or  three  years  of  his  struggle 
for  fortune  he  had  to  maintain  his  position  by 
the  exercise  of  the  most  scrupulous  frugality. 
He  was  his  own  servant,  having  his  dinner  sent 
in  to  him  from  a  neighbouring  cookshop,  and 
eating  it  on  his  counter,  using  an  old  newspaper 
for  his  table-cloth.  Mr.  Knight  doubts  the 
accuracy  of  this  report,  because  at  that  time  the 


22  SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

largest  newspaper  issued  was  the  size  of  an  or- 
dinary dish.  Well,  it  does  not  seem  necessary 
on  that  account  to  deprive  Mr.  Guy  of  this 
mark  and  proof  of  his  frugality — let  us  suppose 
that  instead  of  a  newspaper  he  used  a  couple  of 
old  demy  broadside  proofsheets. 

Perhaps  the  most  interesting  episode  in  the 
young  publisher's  career  occurred  when  he  had 
attained  his  twenty-eighth  year.  He  begins  to 
feel  lonely.  He  indulges  himself  with  the  luxury 
of  a  maidservant  who  cooks  his  meals  and  keeps 
his  linen  in  order.  He  cares  little  about  society, 
he  but  rarely  dines  in  his  Company's  Hall.  Now 
this  neat-handed  Phillis  had  never  wasted  his 
money  or  victuals  while  in  his  service ;  he  asked 
her  to  marry  him,  and  he  was  graciously  ac- 
cepted. 

But  alas !  the  frugal  maiden  made  one  fatal 
mistake;  she  had  not  sufficiently  learned  the 
lesson  of  implicit  obedience  to  his  will.  Some 
paviors  were  at  work  laying  down  some  pave- 
ment in  front  of  the  shop,  under  very  special 
and  definite  instruction  given  them  by  Mr.  Guy. 
The  workmen  finding  that  a  certain  portion  re- 
mained unpaved  went  to  him  for  further  instruc- 
tion. Unhappily  for  the  future  destiny  of  him- 


THOMAS  GUY  23 

self  and  the  maiden,  he  was  not  at  home.  "  Do 
as  you  wish,"  said  the  infatuated  girl;  "tell 
him  I  bade  you,  and  I  am  sure  he  will  not 
be  angry ! "  History  recordeth  not  the  words 
that  passed,  but  Thomas  Guy's  little  love  episode 
is  for  ever  at  an  end,  and  if  the  maiden  was 
ever  married  at  all  it  must  have  been  to  some 
one  else. 

It  had  been  stated  by  a  writer  in  Mr.  Nichols' 
"  Literary  Anecdotes  "  that  the  bulk  of  Mr.  Guy's 
fortune  was  acquired  by  purchasing  seamen's 
pay  tickets  at  a  discount  of  forty  or  fifty  per 
cent,  during  Queen  Anne's  wars,  and  by  South 
Sea  stock — in  the  memorable  year  1720.  Mr. 
Knight,  however,  points  out  that  the  practice  of 
paying  seamen  by  tickets  belonged  to  the  time 
of  Charles  II.  and  had  fallen  into  disuse  before 
Queen  Anne's  time. 

Under  William  III.,  in  1692,  a  loan  of  a 
million  was  sanctioned  by  Parliament,  and  of 
this  he  is  said  to  have  taken  up  a  portion.  Two 
years  after  he  was  elected  as  a  member  of  Par- 
liament for  Tamworth,  the  town  of  his  early 
days  and  his  frequent  benefactions. 

Maitland  says  of  his  early  career :  "  As  he 
was  a  man  of  unbounded  charity  and  universal 


24  SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

benevolence,  so  was  he  likewise  a  great  patron 
of  liberty  and  the  rights  of  his  fellow-subjects, 
which  to  his  great  honour  he  strenuously  asserted 
in  divers  Parliaments  whereof  he  was  a  member," 
from  1695  to  1707. 

The  only  contemporaneous  notice  of  Guy  is 
by  John  Dunton,  the  bookseller.  In  his  work 
published  in  1705,  he  says:  "  He  makes  an 
eminent  figure  in  the  Company  of  Stationers, 
having  been  chosen  Sheriff  of  London,  and  paid 
the  fine,  and  is  now  member  of  parliament  for 
Tarn  worth.  .  .  .  He  is  a  man  of  strong  reason 
and  can  talk  very  much  to  the  purpose  on  any 
subject  you  will  propose.  He  is  truly  charitable, 
his  almshouses  to  the  poor  are  standing  testi- 
monies." 

These  almshouses  were  built  at  Tamworth  in 
1705 ;  two  years  later  he  built  three  new  wards 
to  St.  Thomas's  Hospital,  besides  being  a  regular 
benefactor  of  ;£ioo  a  year. 

Mr.  Roberts  says  that,  according  to  Maitland, 
his  private  acts  of  charity  were  many,  especially 
to  his  poor  relations;  he  frequently  accom- 
plished the  discharge  from  prison  of  insolvent  x 
debtors  and  reinstated  them  in  business.  He 
was  constantly  ready  to  advance  money  without  ,< 


THOMAS  GUY  25 

interest  to  deserving  young  men  to  start  in 
business. 

Mr.  Roberts  also  quotes  an  interesting  story 
from  the  "  Saturday  Magazine  "  of  August  2nd, 
1834.  One  day,  leaning  over  one  of  the  bridges 
looking  very  despondent  and  melancholy,  a  by- 
stander, thinking  he  was  bent  on  suicide,  im- 
plored him  not  to  commit  any  rash  act.  Then 
quickly  placing  a  guinea  in  his  hand,  he  hastily 
withdrew.  Guy  followed  the  stranger,  assured 
him  that  he  was  mistaken,  and  begged  his 
address.  Some  years  afterwards  Guy,  seeing 
the  name  of  his  friend  in  the  bankruptcy  list, 
hastened  to  his  house,  reminded  him  of  the 
incident  of  the  bridge,  arranged  with  his  credi- 
tors, and  finally  re-established  him  in  his  busi- 
ness, which  prospered  in  his  hands  and  those  of 
his  children's  children  for  many  years  in  New- 
gate Street,  London. 

He  held  Government  securities  to  the  amount 
of  many  thousands,  and  subscribed  the  same 
into  the  South  Sea  Company  at  6  per  cent, 
interest.  During  the  subsequent  ten  years, 
being  a  fundholder  at  this  moderate  rate  of 
interest,  he  made  large  benefactions  to  the 
Stationers'  Company  and  Christ's  Hospital. 


26          SKETCHES  OF  BOOKSELLERS 

In  1720,  when  he  was  seventy-six  years  old, 
came  the  culminating  point  of  his  prosperity. 
Parliament  had  sanctioned  an  increase  of  South 
Sea  capital — at  that  time  Guy  held  ^45,500  of  yt 
stock.  No  sooner  was  this  increase  of  capital 
granted  than  there  came  a  great  run  on  the 
stock ;  and  Mr.  Guy,  wisely  considering  that  the 
great  rise  of  the  stock  was  owing  to  the  iniquitous 
management  of  a  few,  began  to  "  unload,"  as  the  7* 
modern  phrase  is;  at  first  he  sold  at  about 
three  hundred  that  which  cost  him  about  fifty  or 
sixty,  and  he  continued  selling  till  it  rose  to  six 
hundred,  when  he  disposed  of  the  last  of  his 
property  in  the  said  Company.  This  sagacious 
operation  of  his  on  the  very  brink  of  the  bursting 
of  the  Bubble  is  regarded  by  his  biographers  as 
very  legitimate  business,  and  it  would  be  diffi- 
cult to  gainsay  it.  He  had  held  the  stock  for 
ten  years  previously,  and  he  only  took  advan- 
tage of  a  rise  in  the  market ;  but,  after  all,  the 
money  he  so  easily  made  came  out  of  the  pockets 
of  the  many  hundreds  of  families  who  were  com-  -f 
pletely  ruined  when  the  crash  came.  Indeed, 
it  may  almost  be  argued  that  Guy,  under  Provi- 
dence, was  the  means  of  rescuing  from  the  dis- 
aster over  a  quarter  of  a  million  of  money  for 


THOMAS  GUY  2/ 

the  sole  purpose  of  building  and  endowing  a 
great  hospital  for  the  benefit  of  the  poor  and 
distressed. 

He  got  more  money  in  three  months  of  this 
eventful  year  than  was  needed  for  the  erecting, 
furnishing,  and  endowing  his  hospital. 

The  building  cost  nearly  .£19,000,  and  the 
endowment  by  him  amounted  to  .£220,000; 
and  he  had  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that 
his  gains  had  been  worthily  applied,  when  he 
saw  his  hospital  roofed  in  before  he  died  in 
1724. 

Thomas  Guy's  will,  dated  September  4th,  1 7  24, 
bequeaths  lands  and  tenements  in  Staffordshire, 
Warwickshire,  and  Derbyshire  to  grandchildren 
of  his  deceased  sister;  about  ,£75,000  4  per 
cent,  annuities,  mostly  in  sums  of  .£1,000  each, 
to  about  ninety  cousins  in  various  degrees  and 
others  not  relatives,  and  annuities  varying  from 
.£10  to  ,£200  a  year,  mostly  to  older  relatives, 
being  interest  on  .£22,000  of  stock;  .£1,000 
was  left  to  discharged  poor  debtors  in  sums  not 
exceeding  ^5  each — 600  persons  were  thus  re- 
lieved. An  annuity  of  .£400  was  left  to  Christ's 
Hospital  for  board  and  education  of  four  poor 
children  annually. 


28          SKETCHES  OF   BOOKSELLERS 

His  death  took  place  December  lyth,  1724, 
in  his  eighty-first  year. 

He  was  buried  with  great  pomp  after  lying  in 
state  at  the  Mercers'  Chapel. 

In  the  centre  of  the  square  of  Guy's  Hospital 
is  a  bronze  statue  of  Guy  in  his  livery  gown  by 
Scheemakers ;  on  the  west  side,  in  basso-relievo, 
is  represented  the  parable  of  the  Good  Shep- 
herd, and  on  the  east  Christ  healing  the  impo- 
tent man. 


JOHN    DUNTON,     1659-1733. 


III.  JOHN   DUNTON,    1659-1733. 

INLIKE  the  two  ancient  shadows 
of  whom  I  have  endeavoured  to 
give  glimpses,  both  of  whom,  be- 
ginning life  in  poor  circumstances, 
took  the  tide  at  flood  which  led  them  on  to  for- 
tune, John  Dunton  began  his  business  career  in 
fairly  affluent  circumstances,  but,  omitting  to 
catch  the  tide,  the  voyage  of  his  life  was  bound 
"  in  shallows  and  in  miseries,"  and  ended  in  the 
Fleet  prison.  He  was  a  bookseller  who  wrote 
many  books  instead  of  selling  them,  and  he 
came  to  be  looked  upon  as  a  sort  of  lusus 
natures  by  the  great  literary  people  of  his  time, 
and  as  an  intruder ;  and  so  he  was  called  a 
"  lunatick  "  by  his  contemporaries.  Warburton 
described  him  as  "an  auction  bookseller  and 


30  SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

an  abusive  scribbler "  ;  and  the  elder  Disraeli 
notices  him  as  "  a  crack-brained  scribbling  book- 
seller, who  boasted  he  had  a  thousand  projects, 
fancied  he  had  methodized  six  hundred,  and 
was  ruined  by  the  fifty  he  executed." 

Among  the  many  books  which  he  wrote,  the 
most  curious  and  interesting  was  "The  Life 
and  Errors  of  John  Dunton,  written  by  himself,  > 
in  solitude,  in  which  is  included  the  lives  and 
characters  of  a  thousand  persons  now  living  in 
London."1 

It  is  from  this  work  that  the  main  facts  of 
John  Dunton's  life  have  been  gathered  by  those 
who  have  written  about  him.  Charles  Knight 
says  that  he  had  waded  for  the  third  or  fourth 
time  through  a  volume  of  700  pages,  vilely 
printed  upon  the  most  wretched  paper.  It  was 
published  by  S.  Malthus  in  1705,  and  was 
reprinted  by  Mr.  John  Bowyer  Nichols  in  1817. 

1  The  full  title  is  "  The  Life  and  Errors  of  John 
Dunton,  late  Citizen  of  London,  written  by  himself  in 
solitude.  With  an  Idea  of  a  new  Life  ;  wherein  is  shown 
how  he'd  think,  speak,  and  act,  might  he  live  over  his 
days  again ;  intermixed  with  the  new  Discoveries  the 
Author  has  made  in  his  Travels  abroad,  and  in  his 
private  Conversation  at  home.  Together  with  the  Lives 
and  Characters  of  a  Thousand  Persons  now  living  in 
London.  Digested  into  Seven  Stages  with  their  respec- 
tive Ideas.  London,  printed  for  S.  Malthus.  1705. 


JOHN   DUNTON  31 

I  presume  the  first  edition  is  the  one  referred  to 
by  Mr.  Knight. 

John  Dunton  was  born  May  4,  1659.  His 
father,  grandfather,  and  great-grandfather  were 
all  named  John,  and  all  had  been  clergymen. 
At  the  time  of  our  hero's  birth,  his  father  was 
rector  of  Graffham,  Huntingdonshire.  Losing 
his  wife  when  his  only  child  was  an  infant,  the 
father,  in  a  fit  of  despondency,  went  away  to 
Ireland,  where  he  spent  some  years  as  chaplain 
to  Sir  Henry  Ingoldsby,  having  resolved  not  to 
marry  again  for  seven  years. 

Meanwhile,  by  his  own  account,  the  little  boy 
was  left  to  strangers.  He  had  been  sent  to 
school  with  Mr.  William  Readings  at  Dungrove, 
near  Chesham,  but  seems  to  have  learnt  little, 
and  to  have  led  an  idle  life,  playing  on  the  plea- 
sant banks  of  the  Chess,  and  rambling  among 
the  Chiltern  Hills.  His  father  on  his  return  to 
England  in  1668  became  rector  of  Aston  Clinton, 
Bucks,  and  married  again.  During  childhood 
and  youth  he  had  several  narrow  escapes  from 
death ;  on  one  occasion  from  slipping  headlong 
into  a  river ;  on  another,  while  playing  with  a 
bullet,  it  slipped  down  his  throat  to  his  breast, 
and,  when  nearly  past  hope,  it  suddenly  bolted  up. 


32  SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

John  was  now  taken  home  to  his  father,  who 
educated  him  with  a  view  to  making  him  fourth 
clergyman  of  his  line  and  a  faithful  preacher  of 
the  doctrine  of  the  old  Puritans,  but  he  was 
disappointed. 

Young  John,  describing  himself  at  the  age  of 
fourteen,  says  he  was  "wounded  by  a  silent 
passion  for  a  virgin  in  my  father's  house." 
"  My  father,"  he  says,  "  tried  all  the  methods 
with  me  that  could  be  thought  of,  in  order  to 
reconcile  my  mind  to  the  love  of  learning,  but 
all  of  them  proved  useless  and  ineffectual ;  my 
thoughts  were  all  unbent  and  dissolved  in  the 
affairs  of  love."  His  father's  hopes  that  he 
should  become  a  clergyman  were  destroyed  by 
what  he  calls  his  "unsettled  mercurial  humour." 
He  learnt  Latin,  but  the  difficulties  of  Greek 
quite  broke  all  his  resolutions.  So  the  father, 
not  finding  his  son  inclined  to  learning,  thought 
to  make  it  his  interest  "  to  be  a  friend  to  learning 
and  the  muses." 

At  the  age  of  fourteen,  in  the  year  1673,  he 
was  apprenticed  to  Thomas  Parkhurst,  a  book- 
seller, in  London,  "a  religious  and  just  man," 
and  of  whom  he  subsequently  wrote  as  "my 
honoured  master,  the  most  eminent  Presby- 


JOHN   DUNTON  33 

terian  bookseller  in  the  three  Kingdoms,  and 
now  chosen  Master  of  the  Stationers'  Com- 
pany." From  that  time,  says  he,  "I  began  to 
love  books  to  the  same  excess  that  I  had  hated 
them  before."  His  father  died  in  1676,  giving 
young  John  his  dying  counsels,  "  to  know,  fear, 
love,  obey,  and  serve  God,  your  Creator  and 
Deliverer,  as  He  hath  revealed  Himself  through 
His  Son,  by  the  Spirit,  in  His  Holy  Word." 

During  his  apprenticeship  he  was  again 
smitten  by  the  charms  of  a  certain  young  virgin, 
then  lodging  with  Parkhurst.  "  This  romantic 
courtship,"  says  he,  "gave  both  of  us  a  real 
passion ;  but  my  master,  making  a  timely  dis- 
covery of  it,  sent  the  lady  into  the  country ; 
and  absence  cooled  our  passion  for  us,  and  by 
little  and  little  we  both  of  us  regained  our 
liberty." 

There  is  a  very  curious  old  book  which  I 
have  just  seen  called  "  Three  Hundred  and 
Fifty  Years'  Retrospection  of  an  Old  Book- 
seller," published  in  1835,  in  which  I  find  many 
of  the  anecdotes  about  Dunton  which  are  to  be 
found  in  subsequent  books.  He  says :  "  He 
made  himself  conspicuous  in  a  political  dispute 
between  the  Tories  and  the  Whigs,  being  a 

D 


34          SKETCHES  OF   BOOKSELLERS 

prime  mover  on  the  part  of  the  Whig  appren- 
tices. The  Tories  to  the  number  of  5,000  pre- 
sented an  address  to  the  King  against  the 
petitioning  for  Parliaments.  The  Dissenting 
party,  with  Dunton  as  their  leader,  made  a 
counter-address,  which  they  presented  to  Sir 
Patience  Ward,  then  Lord  Mayor,  who  pro- 
mised he  would  acquaint  the  King;  and  then 
ordered  them  to  return  home,  and  mind  the 
business  of  their  respective  masters." 

When  his  apprenticeship  was  just  expiring  he 
"invited  a  hundred  apprentices  to  celebrate  a 
funeral  for  it,  though  it  was  no  more  than  a 
youthful  piece  of  vanity." 

He  immediately  started  in  business  on  his 
own  account,  occupying  "  half  a  shop,  ware- 
house, and  a  fashionable  chamber."  His  good 
father  had  advised  him  to  use  all  possible 
prudence  in  the  choice  of  a  wife,  and  very 
wisely  exhorted  him  to  keep  something  more 
solid  than  investments  in  publishing  specula- 
tions. "Sell  not,"  said  he,  "any  part  of  your 
estate  in  land,  if  either  your  wife's  portion  or 
your  borrowing  of  money  upon  interest  may 
conveniently  serve  to  set  up  your  trade. 
"  Even,"  said  the  cautious  father,  "  if  you  shall, 


JOHN   DUNTON  35 

by  some  remarkable  providence,  meet  with  a 
wife  of  a  considerable  estate,  you  may  by  her 
portion  set  up  your  trade  without  mortgaging 
your  land." 

It  is  evident  that  John  Dunton  had  some 
capital  at  his  disposal,  and  he  soon  made  the 
acquaintance  of  what  he  calls  "  hackney  authors, 
who  began  to  ply  me  with  specimens  as  earnestly 
and  with  as  much  passion  and  concern  as  the 
watermen  do  passengers  with  oars  and  scullers." 
His  first  venture  was  a  work  by  the  Rev.  Thomas 
Doolittle,  entitled  "  The  Sufferings  of  Christ." 
" This  book,"  he  says,  "fully  answered  my  end; 
for,  exchanging  through  the  whole  trade,  it  fur- 
nished my  shop  with  all  sorts  of  books  saleable 
at  the  time."  This  method  of  exchange  and 
barter  must  have  been  a  very  convenient  method 
for  a  beginner  not  overburdened  with  capital. 
The  success  of  this  work  and  one  or  two  others 
gave  him  "an  ungovernable  hitch  for  similar 
speculations." 

It  was  now  urged  upon  John  that  he  should 
marry,  and  many  desirable  young  ladies  were 
suggested  to  him.  One  was  Miss  Sarah  Doolittle, 
in  addition  to  whose  personal  charms  and  en- 
dowments there  would  be  the  chance  of  getting 


36          SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

her  father's  "copies"  for  nothing  ;  "  his  book  on 
the  Sacraments  you  know  has  sold  to  the  twentieth 
edition."  "At  last,"  as  Mr.  Roberts  says,  "he 
met  with  Dr.  Annesley's  daughter,  by  whom  he 
was  "  almost  charmed  dead  "  when  he  saw  her 
in  her  father's  meeting-place."  But  this  young 
lady  was  already  engaged,  so  he  was  advised  to 
make  an  experiment  upon  her  elder  sister,  Eliza- 
beth, and  the  result  was  marriage.  By  this 
marriage  he  became  brother-in-law  of  the  Rev. 
Samuel  Wesley,  the  father  of  John  Wesley,  the 
founder  of  Methodism,  who  appears  to  have 
married  Anne,  the  young  lady  who  had  almost 
"  charmed  him  dead."  It  is  supposed  that  Daniel 
Defoe,  author  of  "  Robinson  Crusoe,"  married 
a  third  daughter. 

His  excellent  wife  became  bookseller  and  cash- 
keeper,  at  the  shop  called  "  The  Black  Raven," 
in  Gracechurch  Street,  and,  as  Dunton  admits, 
"  she  managed  all  my  affairs  for  me,  and  left  me 
entirely  to  my  own  rambling  and  scribbling  hu- 
mour." Here,  in  1685,  he  published  "Maggots; 
or,  Poems  on  several  subjects  never  before  handled 
by  a  Scholar."  This  work  is  said  to  have  been 
written  (at  the  age  of  nineteen)  by  Mr.  Samuel 
Wesley. 


JOHN   DUNTON  37 

Owing  to  the  defeat  of  Monmouth  at  Sedg- 
moor,  July  5th,  1685,  there  came  a  great  depres- 
sion in  trade  in  general  and  publishing  did  not 
flourish.  John  had  a  debt  of  ^500  owing  to  him 
in  New  England;  he  decided  to  make  a  trip  to 
Boston,  taking  a  cargo  of  books  with  him.  He 
procured  storage  for  his  venture  in  two  ships  ; 
the  one  in  which  he  himself  took  passage  was  the 
"Susannah  and  Thomas,"  and  after  a  terrible 
passage  of  four  months  and  many  adventures  on 
board  he  at  length  reached  Boston,  but  whether 
the  other  ship  ever  reached  her  destination  is  not 
quite  clear ;  at  all  events,  poor  Dunton  seems  to 
have  lost  half  his  cargo,  valued  at  ^500,  which 
appears  to  have  been  cast  away  in  the  Downs. 
On  his  arrival  at  Boston  "  he  consoled  his  dear 
Iris  "  (his  wife)  "  by  sending  her  sixty  letters  in 
one  ship." 

He  was  absent  from  home  nearly  a  year  en- 
deavouring to  sell  the  remainder  of  his  stock,  but 
he  found  dealing  with  the  four  booksellers  of 
Boston  not  very  profitable,  for,  says  he,  "  he  that 
trades  with  the  inhabitants  of  Boston  may  get 
promises  enough,  but  their  payments  come  late," 
and  he  found  himself  "  as  welcome  as  sour  ale  in 
summer." 


38          SKETCHES  OF  BOOKSELLERS 

He  had  taken  with  him  a  steady  appren- 
tice, Samuel  Palmer,  to  whom  he  intrusted 
the  whole  charge  of  his  business  ;  which  left 
him  at  leisure  to  make  many  excursions  into 
the  country.  He  visited  Harvard  College,  and 
opened  a  warehouse  in  the  town  of  Salem  and 
other  places. 

On  his  return  to  England  he  found  his  affairs 
in  a  bad  condition.  "  He  had  become  security 
for  his  brother  and  sister-in-law"  (presumably 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  S.  Wesley)  "for  about  ^"1,200, 
which  caused  him  much  trouble  ;  he  had  to  keep 
within  doors  for  ten  months."  "  My  confine- 
ment," says  Dunton,  "  growing  very  uneasy  to 
me,  especially  on  Lord's  days,  I  was  extremely 
desirous  to  hear  Dr.  Annesley  preach,  and  im- 
mediately the  contrivance  was  started  in  my 
head  that  dear  Iris  should  dress  me  in  woman's  \ 
cloaths."  Accordingly  he  went,  and  heard  the 
doctor,  but  on  his  return  he  was  discovered — 
"  I'll  be  hanged  if  that  ben't  a  man  in  woman's  X 
cloaths  ! "  He  bolted,  and  twenty  or  thirty 
roughs  gave  chase,  but  he  eventually  eluded 
them,  and  "  came  off  with  honour." 

His  confinement  had  now  become  so  irksome 
that  he  slipped  away  and  rambled  through  Hoi- 


JOHN   DUNTON  39 

land,  Flanders,  Germany,  etc.,  and  stayed  four 
months  at  Amsterdam.  After  an  absence  of 
some  months  he  returned  to  London,  November 
1 5th,  1 688,  and  having  now  settled  with  his  credi- 
tors he  started  afresh  as  a  bookseller :  on  the 
day  the  Prince  of  Orange  came  to  London  he 
opened  a  shop  at  "The  Black  Raven"  in  the 
Poultry.  One  of  his  projects,  says  Mr.  Knight,  was 
a  decided  success.  He  started  the  "  Athenian 
Gazette  "  (afterwards  changed  to  "  Mercury  ") 
the  first  number  of  which  appeared  March  i7th, 
1690,  and  he  kept  on  this  penny  tract  of  a  single 
leaf  till  February,  1696,  when  he  proposed  to 
publish  the  "  Mercuries  "  in  quarterly  volumes, 
and  of  these,  according  to  Mr.  Knight,  he  seems 
to  have  issued  nineteen  volumes,1  which  Mr. 
Knight  regarded  as  "  the  precursors  of  a  revolu- 
tion in  the  entire  system  of  our  lighter  literature, 
which  turned  pamphlets  and  broadsides  into 
magazines  and  miscellanies."  The  associates  in 
the  conduct  of  this  publication,  who  called  them- 
selves the  Athenian  Society,  were  Richard  Sault, 

1  Mr.  Dunton  says  :  ' '  Our  '  Athenian  Mercuries  '  were 
continued  till  they  swelled,  at  least  to  twenty  volumes 
folio :  and  then  we  took  up  to  give  ourselves  a  little  ease 
and  refreshment." 


40          SKETCHES   OF  BOOKSELLERS 

a  Cambridge  theologian,  Samuel  Wesley,  and 
the  Rev.  Dr.  John  Norris.  The  aim  of  the  Athe- 
nian Society,  which  had,  says  Dunton,  "  their 
first  meeting  in  my  brain,"  was  "to  advance  all 
knowledge  and  diffuse  a  general  learning  through 
the  many,  and  by  that  civilise  more  now  in  a 
few  years  than  Athens  itself  did  of  old  during 
the  ages  it  flourished." 

Samuel  Wesley  was  connected  with  him  in 
several  of  his  trade  speculations  •  though  they 
afterwards  parted  with  irreconcilable  hatred.  "  I 
could,"  says  John,  "be  very  maggotty  on  the 
character  of  this  conforming  dissenter ;  but,  ex- 
cept he  further  provokes  me,  I  bid  him  farewell 
till  we  meet  in  heaven ;  and  then  I  hope  we  shall 
renew  our  friendship,  for  human  frailties  excepted, 
I  believe  Sam  Wesley  a  pious  man." 

Theoriginal  agreement  between  Dunton,  Sault, 
and  Wesley,  for  writing  their  paper,  dated  April 
loth,  1691,  is  in  the  Rawlinson  MSS.  in  the 
Bodleian  (D.N.B.).  Mr.  Knight  says  that  Dunton 
was  naturally  proud  of  the  success  of  his  little 
periodical.  "  Poems  in  its  honour  were  written 
by  the  chief  wits  of  the  age."  The  Marquis  of 
Halifax  perused  it,  and  Mr.  Swift,  "a  young 
country  gentleman,  the  haughtiest  of  mankind,"x 


JOHN   DUNTON  .       41 

bowed  down  to  it.     He  wrote  a  poem,  of  which 
the  following  are  the  first  two  lines  : 

' '  Pardon,  ye  great  and  far  exalted  men, 
The  wild  excursion  of  a  youthful  pen." 

"These  old  Athenian  volumes  growing  quite  out 
of  print,  a  choice  collection  of  the  most  valuable 
questions  and  answers,  in  three  volumes,  have 
been  reprinted  under  the  title  of  '  The  Athenian 
Oracle.'  Two  of  these  volumes  I  dedicated  to 
the  most  illustrious  and  most  magnanimous 
Prince,  James,  Duke  of  Ormond.  These  two 
volumes  I  presented  to  his  Grace  with  my  own 
hand ;  and  if  any  thing  could  make  me  vain  of 
the  Athenian  project  it  would  be  the  generous 
reception  his  Grace  gave  to  each  of  the  volumes." 

During  the  progress  of  this  work,  in  1692,  he 
inherited  an  estate  on  the  death  of  his  cousin 
Carter.  "The  World,"  he  says,  "now  smiled 
upon  me  ;  I  sailed  with  wind  and  tide,  and  had 
humble  servants  enough  among  the  booksellers, 
printers,  and  binders.  Now  the  master  and 
assistants  of  the  Company  of  Stationers  began 
to  think  me  sufficient  to  wear  a  livery."  He  paid 
his  livery  fine  of  twenty  pounds. 

One  of  Dunton's  projects — and  one  would 
think  his  maddest — was  what  Nichols  calls  his 


42         SKETCHES  OF  BOOKSELLERS 

"  greatest  project?  viz.,  "The  Night  Walker;  or 
Evening  Rambles  in  search  of  Lewd  Women." 
It  was  intended  for  the  extirpation  of  lewdness 
from  London,  a  scheme  highly  creditable  to  the 
schemer,  had  it  been  practicable.  Armed  with  a 
constable's  staff,  and  accompanied  by  a  clerical 
companion,  he  sallied  forth  in  the  evening,  and 
followed  the  wretched  prostitutes  home,  where 
every  effort  was  made  to  win  the  erring  fair  to  the 
paths  of  virtue ;  "  but  these,"  he  observes,  "  were 
perilous  adventures,  as  the  Cyprians  exerted 
every  art  to  lead  him  astray,  in  the  height  of  his 
spiritual  exhortation." 

The  licensing  system  was  in  vogue  in  those 
days,  and  Dunton  gives  a  quaint  account  of 
"  the  several  licensers  with  whom  I  have  had 
concerns."  The  first  on  his  list  is  Sir  Roger 
L'Estrange,1  and  he  is  thus  characterized:  "a 
man  that  betrays  his  religion  and  country  in 
pretending  to  defend  it;  that  was  made  sur- 

1  In  August,  1663,  Roger  L'Estrange,  Esq.  (after  more 
than  twenty  years  spent  in  serving  the  royal  cause,  near 
six  of  them  in  gaols,  and  almost  four  under  sentence  of 
death  in  Newgate)  had  interest  sufficient  to  obtain  an 
appointment  to  a  new  created  office  under  the  title  of 
Surveyor  of  the  Imprimery  and  Printing  Offices,  together 
with  the  sole  licensing  of  books,  etc. 


JOHN   DUNTON  43 

veyor  of  the  press,  and  would  wink  at  unlicensed 
books  if  the  printer's  wife  would  but  smile  on 
him." 1 

On  the  other  hand,  he  says  of  a  Mr.  Fraser, 
that  "  no  man  was  better  skilled  in  the  mystery 
of  winning  upon  the  hearts  of  booksellers,  nor 
were  the  Company  of  Stationers  ever  blessed 
with  an  honester  licenser."  Of  Mr.  Robert 
Stephens,  a  messenger  to  the  press,  he  says,  "  I 
must  say  he  never  did  me  the  least  injury,  for  if  I 
printed  a  book  that  had  no  license,  I  took  such 
care  to  dazzle  his  eyes  that  he  could  not  see  it." 

Mr.  Knight  says  of  this  licensing  system, 
"with  all  its  tyranny  and  corruption  it  had  one 
advantage ;  it  did  something  to  protect  the  copy- 
right in  books  from  piracy.  The  licensing  acts 
and  proclamations  prohibited  the  printing  of 
any  books  without  the  consent  of  the  author, 
as  also  without  a  license." 

In  the  interval  between  the  period  when 
licenses  of  the  press  had  ceased  and  the  passing 
of  the  Copyright  Act  of  8th  Queen  Anne,  there 

1  In  1662  THE  LICENSING  ACT  was  passed,  and  re- 
pealed in  1691.  The  Act  of  Queen  Anne  was  passed  in 
1 709  ;  in  the  interim  perpetual  copyright  ruled,  but  chaos 
reigned. 


44  SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

was  no  protection  for  literary  property — a  period 
of  twenty  years — and  of  course  piracy  was  ram- 
pant. 

Dunton  mentions  one  Mr.  Lee  in  Lombard 
Street,  "  such  a  pirate,  such  a  cormorant  was 
never  before  known,  copies,  books,  men,  ships, 
all  was  one;  he  held  no  propriety,  right  or 
wrong,  good  or  bad,  till  at  last  he  began  to  be 
known ;  and  the  booksellers,  not  enduring  so  ill 
a  man  among  them,  to  disgrace  them,  spewed 
him  out,  and  off  he  marched  to  Ireland,  where 
he  acted  as  felonious  Lee  as  he  did  in  London." 
There  he  might  safely  pirate.  That  Irish  trade 
flourished  more  or  less  till  the  Union,  1801,  put 
an  end  to  it. 

Among  the  "  Thousand  Friends  "  described 
in  his  book,  he  gives  the  name  probably  of 
every  bookseller  in  London  with  a  few  lines  of 
laudation  to  each  one  of  them.  Thus  (modestly 
referring  to  himself)  "  Mr.  D — ton.  He  is 
happy  in  a  very  beautiful  wife,  and  she  in  a 
kind  husband ;  they  have  lived  so  happily  since 
their  marriage,  that,  sure  enough,  the  banns  of 
their  matrimony  were  asked  in  heaven.  Mr. 
D — ton  may  value  himself  upon  his  beautiful 
choice." 


JOHN   DUNTON  45 

If  his  description  of  them  individually  and 
collectively  was  not  tinged  with  a  liberal  degree 
of  exaggeration  and  flattery,  London  and  pro- 
vincial booksellers  of  to-day  may  well  be 
proud  of  their  predecessors  of  the  latter  part 
of  the  seventeenth  and  the  first  half  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  "  Never,  certainly,"  writes 
Mr.  G.  L.  Craik,  referring  to  Mr.  Dunton's  book, 
"before  or  since  were  all  the  graces,  both  of 
mind  and  body,  so  generally  diffused  among 
any  class  of  men  as  among  these  old  London 
booksellers."  One  is  a  man  "of  very  quick 
parts;"  of  another  it  is  affirmed  that  "for  sense, 
wit,  and  good  humour,  there  are  but  few  can 
equal,  and  none  can  exceed  him."  One  is 
"very  much  conversant  with  the  sacred  writings." 
Another  "  speaks  French  and  Latin  with  a  great 
deal  of  fluency  and  ease."  Another  "  is  familiarly 
acquainted  with  all  the  books  that  are  extant  in 
any  language."  As  to  their  persons,  "  many  of 
them  are  remarkable  for  their  beauty,"  their 
"eyes  brisk  and  sparkling,"  "of  a  graceful  as- 
pect," and  "  of  a  lovely  proportion,  exceedingly 
well  made." 

As  to  the  provincial  booksellers  of  his  time, 
he  describes  only  a  few  of  them  individually, 


46  SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

but  with  a  sweeping  commendation  which,  it 
may  be  hoped,  is  deserved  by  their  successors, 
now  multiplied  twenty-fold.  "  Of  three  hundred 
booksellers  now  trading  in  country  towns,  I 
know  not  of  one  knave  or  blockhead  among 
them  all." 

Book  auctioneers  are  also  noticed  by  Mr. 
Dunton  :  "  The  famous  Mr.  Edward  Millington 
was  one  of  them  ;  he  had  a  quick  wit  and  a 
wonderful  fluency  of  speech.  'Where,'  said 
Mr.  Millington,  'is  your  generous  flame  for 
learning  ?  Who  but  a  sot  or  a  blockhead  would 
have  money  in  his  pockets  and  starve  his 
brains?'  Dr.  Cave  was  once  bidding  too 
leisurely  for  a  book.  '  Where,'  said  Mr.  Mil- 
lington, '  is  your  Primitive  Christianity  ?  ' 
alluding  to  a  book  the  honest  doctor  had  just 
published  under  that  title." 

In  1697  Dunton  lost  his  wife,  whose  death 
he  bitterly  lamented ;  though,  in  the  same  year, 
he  consoled  himself  by  another  marriage,  with 
Sarah,  daughter  of  Mrs.  Nicholas,  of  St.  Albans. 
With  this  lady  he  does  not  seem  to  have  added 
much  to  his  comforts  or  his  fortune.  The 
mother-in-law  was  a  woman  of  property,  who 
left  some  money  to  the  poor  of  St.  Albans  ;  she 


JOHN   DUNTON  47 

quarrelled  with  Dunton,  who  complained  be- 
cause she  refused  to  pay  his  debts.  He  left  his 
wife  soon  after  the  marriage;  he  turned  from 
publishing  to  book-auctioneering,  and  in  1698 
was  busy  in  Dublin  with  a  cargo  of  books.  He 
was  in  Ireland  about  six  months,  and  during 
that  time  he  had  many  quarrels  with  the  book- 
sellers, the  story  of  which  he  related  in  a  tract, 
called  "  The  Dublin  Scuffle  ;  being  a  Challenge 
sent  by  John  Dunton,  Citizen  of  London,  to 
Patrick  Campbell,  Bookseller  in  Dublin."  In 
his  "Farewell  to  his  acquaintances  in  Dublin, 
friends  and  enemies,"  says  Mr.  Roberts,  he  has 
the  satisfaction  of  announcing  the  disposal  of 
the  "  Venture  of  books  I  brought  into  this 
country,  maugre  all  opposition."  His  receipts 
were  about  ^£1,500. 

"  A  worthy  member  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons," says  John,  "  did  me  the  honour  to  say 
that  I  had  been,  by  this  undertaking,  a  great 
benefactor  of  this  country,  and  other  gentlemen 
said  that  I  had  '  done  more  service  to  learning 
by  my  three  auctions  than  any  one  single 
man  that  had  come  to  Ireland  these  hundred 
years.' " 

Dunton  said  that  during  a  short  period  he 


48          SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

published  no  less  than  600  books,  and  of  this 
great  number  he  only  repented  of  seven. 

The  "  Life  and  Errors,"  from  which  most  of 
the  information  about  Dunton  has  been  obtained, 
was  published  in  1705.  "It  is,"  says  Mr. 
Roberts,  "  the  maddest  of  all  mad  books  .  .  . 
but  its  value  to  all  students  of  the  literary 
history  of  the  eighteenth  century  can  hardly  be 
over-estimated."  He  also  gives  a  brief  descrip- 
tion of  an  immense  number  of  books  and 
pamphlets  written  by  Dunton,  even  the  titles  of 
which  my  space  does  not  permit  me  to  quote. 
He  had  given  up  publishing  a  short  time  before 
he  wrote  his  "  Life." 

One  of  his  latest  projects  is  "  An  Appeal  to 
George  I.,"  which  he  considered  in  some  sense 
his  "  Dying  Groans  from  the  Fleet  Prison,  or  a 
last  shift  for  Life."  He  claims  to  have  had  a 
most  distinguished  share  in  bringing  about  the 
Hanoverian  succession,  "  the  Pretender,"  he 
says,  "  having  sworn  that  John  Dunton  is  the 
first  man  he  will  hang  at  Tyburn  if  ever  he 
ascends  the  British  Throne." 

"  Dunton,"  says  Nichols,  "  was  a  most 
voluminous  writer,  as  he  seems  to  have  had 
his  pen  always  ready,  and  never  to  have  been 


JOHN   DUNTON  49 

at  a  loss  for  a  subject  to  exercise  it  upon. 
Though  he  generally  put  his  name  to  what  he 
wrote,  it  would  be  a  difficult  task  to  get  together 
a  complete  collection  of  his  various  publications. 
As  containing  notices  of  many  persons  and 
things  not  to  be  found  elsewhere,  they  certainly 
have  their  use;  and  his  accounts  are  often 
entertaining." 

The  last  halfscore  years  or  more  of  his  life 
were  spent  in  great  misery.  He  died  in  1733, 
in  the  75th  year  of  his  age,  but  where  and  under 
what  circumstances  is  not  now  known.  The 
"Old  Bookseller,"  says  that  Dunton  "certainly 
threw  more  light  upon  the  periodical  publica- 
tions of  his  day  than  any  other  writer.  He 
appears  to  have  laid  the  foundation  of  the  plan 
upon  which  Mr.  Nichols  has  so  much  improved." 


IV.  SAMUEL   RICHARDSON, 
1689-1761 

NE  of  Mr.  Richardson's  biographers 
says  that  he  was  "the  most  emi- 
nent man  who  ever  stood  behind 
a  bookseller's  counter."  I  do 
not  think  he  ever  did  so  stand.  He  should 
more  properly  be  called  a  printer.  He  was 
brought  up  as  a  printer  ;  he  became  a  printer  of 
books,  and  doubtless  his  name  appears  on  the 
title-page  of  many  books.  His  first  book  of 
"  Familiar  Letters  " l  having  been  suggested  to 

1  This  volume  of  "Familiar  Letters"  seems  to  have 
been  published  at  first  anonymously,  and  it  was  not  till 
after  the  author's  death  that  his  name  appears  on  the 
title-page.  It  is  not  included  in  the  Bibliography  given 
by  Mrs.  Thomson  at  the  end  of  her  work,  but  she  men- 
tions it  as  preceding  "  Pamela." 


SAMUEL   RICHARDSON  51 

him  by  Rivington  and  Osborne,  probably  bears 
their  imprint.  His  other  books  would  doubtless 
bear  his  own  name ;  indeed,  his  own  name  on  a 
title-page  as  the  publisher  came  to  be  regarded 
as  a  great  honour.  Thus  Dr.  Edward  Young, 
who  was  an  enthusiastic  admirer,  wrote  :  "  Sup- 
pose on  the  title-page  of  '  The  Night  Thoughts  ' 
you  should  say,  '  Published  by  the  Author  of 
'  Clarissa.' " 

The  term  "  publisher  "  was  rarely  used  in  those 
days — the  word  "bookseller"  being  generally 
adopted — and  in  that  sense  Richardson  was  one. 

There  has  been  so  much  written  by  and  about 
Richardson  that  it  is  difficult  to  compress  into  a 
short  sketch  the  material  available  from  which 
to  glean.  Mrs.  Barbauld  wrote  a  biography  of 
him  as  an  introduction  to  his  correspondence. 
This  biography  and  the  correspondence  form 
the  basis  from  which  all  subsequent  writers  have 
obtained  their  information.  The  last  and  most 
interesting  work  was  published  only  a  few  months 
ago,  entitled  "  Samuel  Richardson :  a  Biogra- 
phical and  Critical  Study,"  by  Clara  Linklater 
Thomson. 

Samuel  Richardson  was  born  in  a  Derbyshire 
village  in  the  year  1689,  but  for  some  reason  he 


52          SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

always  avoided  mentioning  the  name  of  the 
town  or  village,  and,  to  this  day,  Derbyshire 
may  as  a  county  claim  the  honour  of  owning  his 
birthplace,  but  it  cannot  identify  the  spot  where 
the  author  of  "  Clarissa  "  first  saw  the  light  of 
day.  His  father  was  a  joiner  by  trade,  with 
some  knowledge  of  architecture.  He  settled  in 
London  and  married  a  lady  whose  parents  had 
died  within  half-an-hour  of  each  other  in  the 
time  of  the  great  plague,  1665.  He  had  been 
employed  by  the  Duke  of  Monmouth  and  the 
first  Earl  of  Shaftesbury,  and  was  probably  con- 
cerned in  Monmouth's  rebellion ;  on  this  ac- 
count, at  the  time  of  Monmouth's  fall,  suspicion 
of  his  loyalty  fell  upon  him ;  he  closed  his  busi- 
ness in  London,  and  retired  to  this  mysterious 
village  in  Derbyshire,  "  though  to  his  great 
detriment,"  says  Samuel,  "  and  there  I  and  three 
other  children  out  of  nine  were  born."  It  was 
no  joke  in  Chief  Justice  Jeffreys's  days  of 
authority  to  come  under  suspicion  ;  for  he  might 
have  been  sent  to  the  gallows,  or  to  the  planta- 
tions across  the  Atlantic.  This  possibly  explains 
Richardson's  reticence  about  his  native  village. 

Samuel,  one  of  nine  children,  was  intended 
for  the  Church,  but  heavy  losses  obliged  his 


SAMUEL   RICHARDSON  53 

father  to  abandon  his  thought  of  making  his 
ingenious  son  a  parson,  and  he  had  him  bound 
apprentice  to  a  printer  instead.  He  is  said  to 
have  been  for  a  time  at  Christ's  Hospital,  but 
his  name  does  not  appear  in  the  school  registers. 
In  any  case  he  never  attained  more  than  a 
smattering  of  the  learned  languages. 

Mrs.  Barbauld  states  that  when  Richardson 
was  an  old  man  (1753)  he  received  a  letter  from 
a  Dutch  clergyman,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Stinstra,  who 
had  translated  "  Clarissa,"  as  follows  :  "  May  I 
ask  you  (although  I  am  too  bold,  my  letter 
blushes  not)  in  what  kind  of  life  you  have  been 
conversant  in  your  youth  ?  Have  you,  as  fame 
reports,  been  constantly  employed  in  book- 
selling ?  Whence  did  you  attain  so  accurate  a 
knowledge  of  the  various  dispositions  of  nature 
and  of  the  manners  of  mankind  ?  By  what 
means  have  you  compiled  your  immortal  works?'' 
etc.,  etc. 

To  these  flattering  inquiries  the  author  replies 
without  reserve  as  to  the  facts  of  his  early  life. 
"  I  was  not  eleven  years  old,"  he  says,  "when  I 
wrote  spontaneously  a  letter  to  a  widow  of  nearly 
fifty,  who,  pretending  to  a  zeal  for  religion,  and 
being  a  constant  frequenter  of  Church  ordi- 


54         SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

nances,  was  continually  fomenting  quarrels  and 
disturbances,  by  backbiting  and  scandal  among 
all  her  acquaintances.  I  collected,  from  Scrip- 
ture, texts  that  made  against  her.  Assuming 
the  style  and  address  of  a  person  in  years,  I  ex- 
horted her,  I  expostulated  with  her.  But  my 
handwriting  was  known  ;  I  was  challenged  with 
it,  and  owned  the  boldness,  for  she  complained 
to  my  mother  with  tears.  .  .  .  My  mother,  how- 
ever, commended  my  principles,  though  she 
censured  the  liberty  I  had  taken." 

It  was  at  the  ripe  age  of  thirteen  that  he  be- 
came a  writer  of  love-letters  for  the  girls  in  his 
neighbourhood.  "A  bashful  and  not  forward 
boy,"  he  says,  "  I  was  an  early  favourite  with  all 
the  young  women  of  taste  and  reading  in  the 
neighbourhood.  Half  a  dozen  of  them,  when 
met  together  with  their  needles,  used,  when  they 
got  a  book  they  liked,  to  borrow  me  to  read  to 
them.  ...  I  was  not  more  than  thirteen  when 
three  of  these  young  women,  unknown  to  each 
other,  having  a  high  opinion  of  my  taciturnity, 
revealed  to  me  their  love  secrets,  in  order  to  in- 
duce me  to  give  them  copies  to  write  after,  or 
correct,  for  answers  to  their  lovers'  letters ;  nor 
did  any  of  them  ever  know  that  I  was  the  secre- 


SAMUEL  RICHARDSON  55 

tary  to  the  others.  .  .  .  One,  highly  gratified 
with  her  lover's  fervour  and  vows  of  everlasting 
love,  has  said  when  I  have  asked  her  directions  : 
'  I  cannot  tell  you  what  to  write,  but '  (her  heart 
on  her  lips)  '  you  cannot  write  too  kindly.' " 

Thus  it  was  in  those  early  days  that  he  laid 
the  foundation  for  that  intimate  knowledge  of 
the  intricacies  of  the  feminine  side  of  human 
nature,  which  is  so  abundantly  displayed  in  his 
three  great  works  of  fiction. 

Like  Dunton  he  was  intended  for  the  Church, 
but  the  Fates  ordained  that  he  should  be  a  pub- 
lisher and  printer.  When  he  was  seventeen 
years  old,  in  1 706,  he  was  bound  apprentice  to 
Mr.  John  Wilde,  a  printer  of  some  eminence  in 
his  day,  who,  according  to  Dunton,  had  "a very 
noble  printing  house  in  Aldersgate  Street."  Re- 
ferring to  this  period  of  his  life,  Richardson 
writes :  "I  served  a  diligent  seven  years  to  it ; 
to  a  master  who  grudged  every  hour  to  me  that 
tended  to  his  profit ;  even  of  those  times  of 
leisure  and  diversion  which  the  refractoriness  of 
my  fellow-apprentices  obliged  him  to  allow  them, 
and  were  usually  allowed  by  other  masters  to 
their  apprentices.  I  stole  from  the  hours  of 
rest  and  relaxation  my  reading  times  for  the  im- 


56          SKETCHES  OF   BOOKSELLERS 

provement  of  my  mind.  I  took  care  that  even 
the  candle  was  of  my  own  purchasing,  that  I 
might  not,  in  the  most  trifling  instance,  make 
my  master  a  sufferer." 

After  the  expiration  of  his  apprenticeship  with 
this  hard  task-master,  he  worked  for  some  years 
as  a  compositor,  a  reader,  and  as  overseer.  In 
1719  he  took  up  his  freedom,  and  became  a 
master  printer  in  a  small  way  in  a  court  off  Fleet 
Street,  and  filled  up  his  leisure  hours  by  com- 
piling indexes  for  the  booksellers,  and  writing 
prefaces,  and  what  he  calls  honest  dedications. 
He  afterwards  removed  to  Salisbury  Square.  It 
was  in  1724  that  another  future  literary  celebrity 
came  to  work  with  him  as  a  compositor.  Thomas 
Gent,  in  the  "Story  of  his  Life,"1  says:  "Mr. 
Woodfall  was  so  kind  to  recommend  me  to 
the  ingenious  Mr.  Richardson,  in  Salisbury 
Court,  with  whom  I  staid  to  finish  his  part  of 
the  Dictionary,  which  he  had  from  the  book- 
sellers— composed  of  English,  Latin,  Greek,  and 
Hebrew." 

"  His  knowledge  of  the  heart  of  man  was  pro- 

1  "The  Life  of  Mr.  Thomas  Gent,  Printer,  of  York," 
written  by  himself.  London  :  Thomas  Thorpe,  38,  Bed 
ford  Street.  1832. 


SAMUEL   RICHARDSON  57 

bably  extended,"  says  Mr.  Knight,  "  by  his 
acquaintance  with  the  clever  and  profligate 
Duke  of  Wharton,  for  whom  he  printed  the 
"  True  Briton,"  but  he  withdrew  from  it  after 
the  publication  of  the  sixth  number,  and  so 
escaped  prosecution." 

Two  years  after  he  started  business  he  married 
— in  1726  —  Martha,  daughter  of  Allington 
Wilde,  of  Aldersgate  Street — so  says  Mrs.  Bar- 
bauld  (quoting  Nichols),  "  whom,"  says  the 
D.N.B.,  "  she  confuses  with  his  master,  John 
Wilde,"  but  in  this  instance  the  D.N.B.  seems 
to  be  mistaken,  for  I  notice  that  Clara  L. 
Thomson,  in  the  very  interesting  work  she  has 
just  published,  shows  pretty  clearly  that  Richard- 
son, after  all,  did  "carry  out  his  resemblance 
to  the  industrious  apprentice,  by  marrying  his 
master's  daughter."  She  found  in  the  registers 
of  Charterhouse  Chapel,  under  date  1692,  that 
John  Wilde,  widower,  of  the  parish  of  St.  Bar- 
tholomew the  Great,  married  Martha  A.  Alling- 
ton, spinster;  and  under  date  November  23, 
1721,  Samuel  Richardson  (ccdebs)  married 
Martha  Wilde  (solutd)  of  the  parish  of  St. 
Botolph's,  Aldersgate.  It  seems  likely  that  this 
Martha  was  the  daughter  of  the  John  and  Martha 


58          SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

above  named ;  and  as,  from  Richardson's  will, 
we  know  that  he  had  a  brother-in-law,  Allington 
Wilde,  Nichols  probably  confused  the  son,  who 
was  named  after  his  mother's  family,  with  the 
father,  John,  who  died  in  1728,  and  who  had 
"  a  very  noble  printing  house  in  Aldersgate." 

Through  the  influence  of  the  Right  Honour- 
able Arthur  Onslow,  who  became  Speaker  of  the 
House  of  Commons  in  1728,  he  was  entrusted 
with  printing  the  Journals  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. Of  these  he  printed  twenty-six  volumes, 
and  incurred  thereby  a  debt  owing  to  him  by 
the  Government  of  ,£3,000,  which  he  had  great 
difficulty  in  getting  paid,  "  owing,"  says  Mr. 
Knight,  "  to  every  sort  of  jobbery  and  fraud 
during  most  part  of  the  eighteenth  century 
.  .  .  of  under-secretaries  and  auditors  of 
accounts." 

In  1736  he  printed  the  "  Daily  Journal,"  and 
in  1738  the  "  Daily  Gazetteer."  Some  noblemen 
and  authors  founded,  in  1736,  "A  Society  for 
the  Encouragement  of  Learning,"  and  ap- 
pointed him  to  be  one  of  the  printers.  The 
Society  was  intended  to  make  authors  independent 
of  publishers.  It  soon  collapsed. 

"  These  years,"  says  Mrs.  Thomson,  "  were 


SAMUEL  RICHARDSON  59 

for  Richardson  a  period  of  much  domestic 
trouble.  His  first  wife,  overwhelmed  by  grief 
at  the  loss  of  all  her  children,  died  in  1731.  He 
did  not  long  remain  a  widower,  and  the  next 
year  he  married  Elizabeth  Leake,  the  daughter 
of  a  bookseller  at  Bath.  Their  eldest  child, 
Elizabeth,  born  in  1733,  lived  only  a  few  months, 
but  Mary,  born  in  1734,  Martha,  in  1736,  Anne, 
in  1737,  and  Sarah,  in  1740,  all  survived  their 
father.  There  was  also  a  son,  Samuel,  born 
in  1739,  and  buried  in  1740.  Richardson  felt 
his  bereavements  deeply." 

Thus  Samuel  Richardson  pursued  the  even 
tenour  of  his  way  till  1740,  when  two  members 
of  the  trade — Mr.  Rivington  and  Mr.  Osborne 
— proposed  to  him  to  undertake  for  them  a 
literary  work  rather  more  interesting  than  "in- 
dexes and  dedications."  Here  is  his  own 
account  of  the  affair :  "  Two  booksellers,  my 
particular  friends,  entreated  me  to  write  for 
them  a  little  volume  entitled,  '  Familiar  Letters 
to  and  from  Persons  in  Business  and  other 
Subjects,"  in  a  common  style  on  such  subjects 
as  might  be  of  use  to  those  country  readers  who 
were  unable  to  write  for  themselves.  'Will  it 
be  any  harm,'  said  I,  '  in  a  piece  you  want  to 


60  SKETCHES   OF    BOOKSELLERS 

be  written  so  low,  if  we  should  instruct  them 
how  they  should  think  and  act  in  common  cases 
as  well  as  indite  ?  "  They  were  the  more  urgent 
with  me  to  begin  the  little  volume  for  this  hint. 
I  set  about  it,  and  in  the  progress  of  it  wrote 
two  or  three  letters  to  instruct  handsome  girls, 
who  were  obliged  to  go  out  to  service,  as  we 
phrase  it,  how  to  avoid  the  snares  that  might  be 
laid  against  their  virtue.  And  hence  sprung 
"  Pamela,  or  Virtue  Rewarded," l  which  appears 
to  have  been  written  in  three  months. 

Evidently  "  Pamela  "  "  sprung  "  from  the  '•'•two 
or  three  letters"  and  not  from  the  volume  sug- 
gested by  R.  and  O..  which  was  a  separate 
work. 

Fielding  ridiculed  "  Pamela  "  in  his  "  Joseph 
Andrews, "and  Richardson  ever  afterwards  spoke 
very  bitterly  of  his  rival.  It  is  curious  that 
neither  of  these  two  admired  writers  (of  totally 
different  schools)  could  discover  the  least  merit 
in  the  other's  works.  Fielding  laughed  at  the 
"  puny  Cockney  bookseller  pouring  out  endless 
volumes  of  sentimental  twaddle,"  and  held  him 
up  to  scorn  as  "a  moll-coddle  and  a  milksop." 

1  See  Footnote  ante,  page  50. 


SAMUEL  RICHARDSON  6l 

Richardson  said  that  "had  he  not  known 
Fielding,  he  should  have  believed  the  author  of 
'  Joseph  Andrews '  to  have  been  an  ostler." 

Highly  as  his  reputation  as  an  author  was 
raised  by  "  Pamela,"  he  acquired,  and  justly, 
still  higher  fame  by  "  Clarissa  Harlowe,"  "  the 
first  four  volumes  of  which,  with  a  preface  by 
Warburton,  appeared  in  1747,  and  the  last  four 
by  the  end  of  1748.  This  work  soon  won  for 
him  a  European  reputation." — D.N.B.  Mrs. 
Barbauld  says  she  "very  well  remembers  a 
Frenchman  who  paid  a  visit  to  Hampstead  for 
the  sole  purpose  of  finding  out  the  house  in  the 
Flask  Walk1  where  Clarissa  lodged,  and  was 
surprised  at  the  ignorance  or  indifference  of 
the  inhabitants  on  that  subject.  The  Flask  Walk 
was  to  him  as  much  classic  ground  as  the  rocks 
of  Meillerie  to  the  admirers  of  Rousseau." 

His  next  and  last  great  work  was  "  Sir  Charles 
Grandison,"  which  was  received  with  great  en- 

1  Mr.  George  Stevens  lived  in  a  house  just  on  the  rise 
of  Hampstead  Heath.  It  was  paled  in,  and  had,  im- 
mediately before  it,  a  verdant  lawn  skirted  with  a  variety 
of  picturesque  trees — formerly  a  tavern,  known  by  the 
name  of '  The  Upper  Flask,'  and  which  my  fair  readers 
will  recollect  to  have  been  the  same  to  which  Richardson 
sends  Clarissa  in  one  of  her  escapes  from  Lovelace." 
("Nichols*  Literary  Anecdotes.") 


62  SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

thusiasm.  Mr.  Knight,  with  prophetic  vision, 
says :  "  I  fear  there  will  never  be  a  revival  of 
three-volume  novels  in  large  type,  of  the  devotion 
which  rarely  wearied  of  a  story  told  in  some 
three  or  four  hundred  epistles.  I  lately  asked 
at  a  country  circulating  library  for  'Clarissa' 
and  '  Sir  Charles  Grandison,'  and  the  worthy 
caterer  of  literary  novelties  told  me  he  had 
never  heard  of  these  books."  "Clarissa"  was 
originally  published  in  eight  volumes,  and  has 
frequently  been  reprinted  since  Mr.  Knight's 
time  in  the  same  number  of  volumes  and  in 
other  forms.  As  to  "three-volume  novels,"  they 
have  had  a  tremendous  vogue  since  he  wrote  in 
1865,  but  now  in  1901  it  can  truly  be  said,  as 
he  said  then,  "  there  will  never  be  a  revival  of 
them." 

Richardson,  like  John  Dunton,  had  cause  to 
complain  of  the  want  of  copyright  in  Ireland. 
He  had  hurried  forward  the  printing  of  "  Sir 
Charles  Grandison,"  in  order  to  be  the  first  in 
that  market,  but  he  was  beaten.  The  sheets 
were  stolen  from  his  printing  office,  and  three 
Irish  booksellers  (Dunton's  "  Felonious  Lee " 
may  have  been  mixed  up  with  them)  each  pub- 
lished cheap  editions  of  nearly  half  the  work, 


SAMUEL  RICHARDSON  63 

before  a  volume  appeared  in  England.  He  had 
heard  an  Irish  bookseller  boast  that  he  could 
procure  from  any  printing  office  in  London 
sheets  of  any  books  printed  in  it,  and  while  it 
was  going  on.  "This  occurrence,"  says  Mr. 
Knight,  "excited  naturally  the  indignant  de- 
nunciation of  the  English  Press."  "The 
Gray's  Inn  Journal "  observed  that  "  a  greater 
degree  of  probity  might  be  expected  from  book- 
sellers, on  account  of  their  occupation  in  life  and 
connections  with  the  learned.  What  then  should 
be  said  of  Messrs.  Eckshaw,  Wilson,  and 
Saunders,  booksellers  in  Dublin,  and  per- 
petrators of  the  vile  act  of  piracy?  They 
should  be  expelled  from  the  Republic  of  Letters, 
as  literary  Goths  and  Vandals  who  are  ready  to 
invade  the  property  of  every  man  of  genius." * 

Dr.  Johnson  wrote  of  Richardson,  who  had 
contributed  one  or  two  papers  to  the  "  Rambler," 
as  "  an  author  who  had  enlarged  the  knowledge 

1  Nichols  gives  in  full  a  long  letter  "  From  the  Courts 
of  Parnassus,"  addressed  to  "  The  Students  of  Trinity 
College  in  Dublin."  In  it  he  writes  :  "We  do  hereby 
enjoin  our  young  collegians,  in  a  collective  body,  to 
march  to  the  respective  houses  of  the  said  Peter  Wilson, 
John  Eckshaw,  and  Henry  Saunders,  their  bodies  to 
seize,  and  in  solemn  procession  to  proceed  with  the  same 


64  SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

of  human  nature,  and  taught  the  passions  to 
move  at  the  command  of  virtue." 

In  1754  he  was  chosen  Master  of  the  Sta- 
tioners' Company,  all  the  duties  of  which  he 
was  well  fitted  to  perform,  says  Mrs.  Thomson, 
except  that  of  hearty  participation  in  the 
banquets.  "  I  cannot  but  figure  to  myself," 
said  Thomas  Edwards,  "  the  miserable  example 
you  will  set  at  the  head  of  the  loaded  tables, 
unless  you  have  two  stout  jaw-workers  for  your 
wardens,  and  a  good  hungry  Court  of  Assistants. 
Yours  indeed  is  an  example  which,  were  the 
Company  to  follow,  your  cook's  place  would  be 
in  effect  a  sinecure."  The  new  Master's  weak 
health  had  for  some  time  necessitated  a  vege- 
tarian and  water  diet. 

An  imprisoned  debtor  wrote  to  him  in  praise 
of  "Sir  Charles  Grandison,"  which  he  said 
had  in  a  few  hours  "  done  for  him  what  five 
years'  imprisonment,  with  all  the  want  and  in- 
to the  place  where  William  Wood,  hardwareman,  was 
executed  in  effigy,  and  then  and  there  the  said  persons  in 
a  blanket  to  toss,  but  not  till  they  are  dead."  .  .  "Given 
on  Parnassus,  the  loth  of  October,  in  the  year  of  the 
Homeric  zera  two  thousand  seven  hundred  and  fifty- 
three.  By  order  of  Apollo.  JONATHAN  SWIFT,  Secre- 
tary." 


SAMUEL  RICHARDSON  65 

digence  imaginable  annexed  to  it,  could  not 
do."  Another  correspondent,  one  Eusebius 
Sylvester,  wrote  to  him  in  a  similar  strain,  prais- 
ing his  books,  flattering  his  vanity,  and  begging 
for  a  loan.  Richardson  replied  to  this  latter  in 
a  long  letter,  sent  him  ^25,  and  apologised  for 
the  smallness  of  the  loan  on  the  score  of  many 
calls  upon  his  purse. 

Mrs.  Piozzi,  in  "  Johnsoniana,"  says  :  "  We 
were  talking  of  Richardson,  who  wrote  'Clar- 
issa.'" "You  think  I  love  flattery,"  says  Dr. 
Johnson,  "  and  so  I  do ;  but  a  little  too  much 
always  disgusts  me ;  that  fellow  Richardson,  on 
the  contrary,  could  not  be  contented  to  sail 
quietly  down  the  stream  of  reputation  without 
longing  to  taste  the  froth  from  every  stroke  of 
the  oar." 

As  a  proof  of  Richardson's  good  nature,  Dr. 
Johnson  gives  a  curious  instance.  "  I  remember 
writing  to  him  from  a  sponging  house,  and  was 
so  sure  of  my  deliverance  through  his  kindness 
and  liberality  that,  before  his  reply  was  brought, 
I  knew  I  could  afford  to  joke  with  the  rascal 
who  had  me  in  custody,  and  did  so  over  a  pint 
of  adulterated  wine  for  which,  at  that  instant,  I 
had  no  money  to  pay." 
F 


66          SKETCHES  OF  BOOKSELLERS 

Mr.  Nichols  quotes  from  a  MS.  of  Mr. 
Whiston,  a  bookseller  of  the  period,  in  which 
he  says  that  Richardson,  "  being  very  liable  to 
passion,  he  directed  all  his  men,  it  is  said,  by 
letter,  not  trusting  himself  to  reprove  by  words 
which  threw  him  into  a  passion  and  hurt  him,  who 
had  always  a  tremor  in  his  nerves."  Nichols  says 
this  was  not  the  reason,  though  the  fact  was  cer- 
tainly true — it  was  rather  for  convenience,  and 
because  his  principal  assistant,  Mr.  Tewley,  was 
deaf. 

Richardson  never  allowed  his  immense  popu- 
larity as  a  writer  to  interfere  with  his  business 
occupation  as  a  printer.  He  regularly  attended 
his  office  in  Salisbury  Court,  and  he  was  evi- 
dently in  very  prosperous  circumstances.  He 
purchased  a  moiety  of  the  Patent  of  Law  Printer, 
at  Midsummer,  1760,  and  carried  on  that  de- 
partment of  business  in  partnership  with  Miss 
Catherine  Lintot. 

He  often  regretted  that  he  had  only  females 
to  whom  to  transfer  his  business,  but  he  had 
taken  in  to  assist  him  a  nephew,  who  relieved 
him  from  the  more  burdensome  cares  of  it,  and 
who  eventually  succeeded  him.  (Nichols.) 

He  had  lived  in  a  country  house  at  North 


SAMUEL  RICHARDSON  67 

End,  Hammersmith,  for  many  years.  In  1754 
he  removed  to  Parson's  Green,  Fulham. 

His  house  was  generally  rilled  with  his  friends 
of  both  sexes.  He  was  regularly  there  from 
Saturday  to  Monday,  and  frequently  at  other 
times,  but  never  so  happy  as  when  he  made 
others  so,  being  himself,  in  his  narrower  sphere, 
the  Grandison  he  drew ;  his  heart  and  hand  were 
ever  open  to  distress.  (Nichols.) 

The  accompanying  picture  of  this  house  is 
from  an  old  engraving  in  my  possession  dated 
1799.  It  bears  the  inscription  which  is  now 
underneath  it.  But  as  "Clarissa"  was  pub- 
lished in  1747-48,  it  could  not  have  been  written 
in  1754 — I  cannot  vouch  for  its  authenticity. 

In  1757  his  eldest  daughter,  Polly,  was  mar- 
ried to  Mr.  Philip  Ditcher,  a  Bath  surgeon ;  she 
died  a  widow  in  1783 ;  Patty,  who  acted  as  his 
amanuensis,  was  married  after  her  father's  death 
in  1762  to  a  Mr.  Bridgen;  and  Sarah,  the 
youngest,  to  Mr.  Crowther,  surgeon  of  Boswell 
Court.  Nancy,  the  third  daughter,  died  unmar- 
ried in  1803,  the  last  survivor  of  the  family. 

"  I  have  a  very  good  wife,"  said  Richardson 
to  Edwards,  "  I  am  sure  you  think  I  have.  But 
the  man  who  has  passed  all  his  days  single  is 


68           SKETCHES  OF  BOOKSELLERS 

not  always  a  loser."  In  another  letter  he  writes, 
half  playfully :  "  Many  who  think  they  know  us 
well  (God  help  them,  or  rather  God  help  me !) 
imagine  I  carry  every  point,  so  meek  my  wife 
Be  quiet,  standers  by,  you  don't  always  see 
more  than  those  who  play.  Let  me  warn  you 
to  doubt  your  own  judgments  when  you  take 
upon  you  to  decide  in  favour  of  the  yielding 
qualities  of  a  meek  wife,  not  obstinacy  itself  is 
more  persevering  !  " 

It  need  not  be  inferred  from  this  that  Richard- 
son was  not  an  affectionate  husband ;  there  may 
have  been  occasional  exhibition  on  both  sides 
of  incompatibility  of  temper,  that  is  all.  "  His 
esteem  for  his  wife,"  says  Mrs.  Thomson,  "is 
further  proved  by  the  fact  that  he  appointed  her 
one  of  the  executors  of  his  will,  which  he  made 
in  1757.  His  increasing  infirmities  can  scarcely 
have  improved  a  temper  naturally  irritable  and 
exacting." 

He  was  seized  on  a  Sunday  evening  with  a 
most  severe  paralytic  stroke,  and  after  lingering 
unconscious  for  two  days  he  died  on  July  4th, 
1761.  He  was  buried  beside  his  first  wife  in 
the  middle  aisle  of  St.  Bride's  Church,  which 
had  witnessed  the  baptism  of  all  his  children. 


SAMUEL  RICHARDSON  69 

I  may  properly  conclude  this  rapid  sketch  by 
quoting  his  own  portrait  of  himself : 

"Short,  rather  plump,  about  five  feet  five 
inches,  fair  wig,  one  hand  generally  in  his  bosom, 
the  other  a  cane  in  it,  which  he  leans  upon 
under  the  skirt  of  his  coat  that  it  may  imper- 
ceptibly serve  him  as  a  support  when  attacked 
by  sudden  tremors  or  dizziness  which  too  fre- 
quently attack  him,  but  not,  thank  God !  so 
often  as  formerly ;  looking  directly  foreright,  as 
passers  by  would  imagine,  but  observing  all  that 
stirs  on  either  hand  of  him  without  moving  his 
short  thick  neck ;  hardly  ever  turning  back ;  of 
a  light-brown  complexion,  teeth  not  yet  failing 
him,  smooth-faced  and  ruddy-cheeked ;  at  some 
times  looking  to  be  about  sixty-five,  at  other 
times  much  younger ;  a  regular  even  pace,  steal- 
ing away  the  ground  rather  than  seeming  to  rid 
it;  a  grey  eye  too  often  overclouded  by  misti- 
ness from  the  head;  by  chance  lively,  very 
lively  it  will  be  if  he  have  hope  of  seeing  a  lady 
whom  he  loves  and  honours." 


V.   THOMAS   GENT,  PRINTER,   OF 
YORK,  1691-1778 

OTHING  was  known  of  Thomas 
Gent's  early  history  beyond  what 
could  be  incidentally  gathered  from 
his  own  publications,  until  many 
years  after  his  death,  when  a  manuscript  was 
discovered  in  his  own  handwriting  by  Mr.  Thorpe, 
bookseller  in  Bedford  Street,  Covent  Garden. 
The  title  was,  "  The  Life  of  Mr.  Thomas  Gent, 
Printer,  of  York,  written  by  himself."  It  was 
written  in  1746,  when  he  was  fifty-three  years 
old,  so  that  presumably  he  was  born  in  I6Q3.1 
The  volume  was  published  by  Mr.  Thorpe  in 

1  At  the  end  of  the  book  it  is  stated  that  he  died 
May  igth,  1778,  in  his  eighty-seventh  year.  In  that 
case  he  must  have  been  born  in  1691  or  1692. 


THOMAS   GENT,    1691-1778, 
Printer  of  York. 

Front  a  ntezzotinto  engraving  by  Valentine  Green, 
after  Nathan  Drake. 


THOMAS   GENT  71 

1832.  It  is  to  this  volume  that  I  am  chiefly 
indebted  for  the  matter  which  forms  this  sketch. 

It  is  a  story  of  hardships  bravely  borne, 
described  sometimes  with  quaint  unconscious 
humour — of  success  sometimes  within  his  grasp, 
but  never  really  attained,  and  of  a  disastrous 
ending.  Southey,  mentioning  him  in  "The 
Doctor,"  says  the  volume  "contains  much  in- 
formation relating  to  the  state  of  the  press  in 
his  days,  and  the  trade  of  literature."  It  would 
be  quite  impossible,  and  I  think  uninteresting, 
to  go  into  dry  details  of  this  description. 

Gent  was  a  native  of  Ireland.  It  so  happened, 
however,  when  Mr.  Thorpe  came  to  print  the 
book,  three  closely  printed  folios  were  missing, 
the  first,  the  third,  and  the  ninth.  Doubtless 
the  first  contained  an  account  of  his  parentage 
and  his  childhood.  His  parents  were  resident 
in  Ireland,  and  when  the  story  begins  he  was 
apprenticed  to  a  printer  in  Dublin,  who  by  his 
own  account  treated  him  so  badly  that,  after 
having  served  from  the  age  of  twelve  or  thirteen 
to  sixteen  or  seventeen,  he  ran  away,  and  it  is  at 
this  point  the  MS.  begins.  He  got  a  shilling 
from  his  mother,  gave  her  and  his  father  a  fare- 
well kiss,  and,  without  a  hint  as  to  where  he  was 


72  SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

going,  he  started  with  three  small  loaves  of  bread 
and  seventeen  pence  in  his  pocket.  He  managed 
to  creep  unperceived  into  the  hold  of  Captain 
Wharton's  ship  just  starting  for  England,  and 
there  was  hidden  when  his  father  and  master 
came  aboard  in  search  of  him,  but  he  was  not 
discovered. 

On  the  fourth  day,  after  a  very  rough  passage, 
the  ship  reached  England.  Knowing  that  his 
stock  of  cash  would  not  pay  for  his  passage,  he 
tremblingly  approached  Captain  Wharton  and 
offered  him  his  waistcoat. 

" '  Pretty  lad,'  said  the  captain,  'why,  if  I  were 
to  strip  you  of  your  rayment  you  might  happen 
to  be  starved  to  death ;  had  my  sailors  told  me 
you  were  hid  in  my  ship,  upon  my  word,  you 
should  have  been  delivered  up  to  your  friends. 
What  will  your  parents  think  ?  Here,  young  lad, 
take  this  sixpence,  endeavour  to  get  employment, 
and  take  to  good  ways.' " 

Gent,  with  tears,  thanked  the  good  old  captain, 
and  told  him  that  if  ever  he  met  him  again  he 
would  recompense  him. 

He  landed  and  set  off  on  foot  for  Chester,  but 
there  was  no  printing  office  in  Chester  in  those 
days,  so  he  started  at  once  for  London,  and  on 
the  way  was  near  being  kidnapped  by  a  company 


THOMAS  GENT  73 

of  recruiting  soldiers,  and  after  other  adventures, 
footsore,  weary,  and  famishing,  he  reached  St. 
Albans  ;  there  a  good  landlord  and  his  wife  took 
pity  on  him,  gave  him  a  good  supper  and  sent 
him  to  bed. 

At  this  point  the  narrative  is  interrupted  by 
the  second  missing  leaf,  and  when  it  resumes  we 
find  our  hero  in  London,  in  the  employ  of  a  Mr. 
Midwinter,  a  printer,  who  carried  on  his  trade  at 
Pie  Corner.  There  he  made  the  acquaintance 
of  a  Dublin  schoolfellow,  son  of  Sir  Richard 
Levintz,  who  took  him  about  London  to  see  the 
sights ;  he  was  a  very  handsome  young  fellow,  of 
good  character,  about  to  start  on  his  travels  in 
the  East,  and  Mrs.  Midwinter,  seeing  that  her 
apprentice  had  such  an  honourable  acquaintance, 
began  to  treat  him  with  greater  respect  than 
before. 

He  was  now  about  twenty  years  old,  and  had 
been  seven  years  at  the  trade,  including  his 
Dublin  time  ;  his  master  had  usually  treated  him 
with  great  cruelty,  and  had  recently  given  him  a 
thrashing  because  he  had  told  him  that  he  was 
sadly  in  want  of  a  pair  of  breeches,  but  he  now, 
to  his  surprise,  began  "  to  show  a  glorious  spirit 
of  generosity  "  towards  him.  Gent  had  with  great 


74          SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

pains  taken  down  a  sermon  by  Dr.  Sacheverel 
after  his  suspension,  by  the  printing  of  which  his 
master  made  near  ^30  in  one  week.  Midwinter 
sent  for  him,  presented  him  with  a  crown  piece, 
and  told  him  that  as  he  had  now  been  seven 
years  at  the  business  he  might  have  his  freedom 
and  work  with  whom  he  pleased. 

"  Upon  their  asking  me  what  money  I  had  I 
told  them  my  poor  stock  amounted  to  a  tester  ; 
that  indeed  I  had  a  shilling,  but  sixpence  of  it 
went  to  pay  for  a  letter  that  my  dear  mother 
hapily  sent  me,  wherein,  considering  my  condition, 
she  had  ordered  me  forty  shillings  and  half  a 
dozen  shirts,  to  be  received  from  Mr.  Gunnell, 
in  Throgmorton  Street." 

He  then  engaged  with  Mrs.  Bradford,  a  Quaker 
and  widow  in  Fetter  Lane,  who  treated  him 
kindly,  and  before  the  week  was  out  he  had 
earned  ijs.,  and  having  ^3  in  the  bank  and  a 
new  suit  of  clothes  of  ^3  price  which  Mr.  Mid- 
winter had  given  him,  he  thought  himself  very 
well  off  in  the  world ;  with  this  money  he  bought 
a  new  composing  stick,  a  pair  of  scissors,  a  sliding 
box  to  contain  them,  a  galley,  and  other  appurten- 
ances. 

Not  knowing  when  he  was  well  off,  he  left  the 
widow,  and  engaged  with  a  Mr.  Mears,  in  Black- 


THOMAS  GENT  75 

friars.  In  his  office  he  was  called  upon  to  pay 
Ben-money,  and  was  initiated  into  some  of  the 
mysteries  of  the  trade.  He  was  obliged  to  sub- 
mit to  what  he  says  was  the  immemorial  custom. 

"  '  I  was  dubbed,'  says  he,  'as  great  a  cuz  as 
the  famous  Don  Quixote.  It  commenced  by 
walking  round  the  chapel  singing  an  alphabetical 
anthem,  tuned  literally  to  the  vowels  ;  striking 
me,  kneeling,  with  a  broad  sword ;  and  pouring 
ale  upon  my  head.  My  titles  were  exhibited 
much  to  this  effect :  "  Thomas  Gent,  Baron  of 
College  Green,  Earl  of  Fingal,  .  .  .  and  Lord 
High  Admiral  of  all  the  boys  in  Ireland,  etc." ' 

After  this  initiation  it  was  a  matter  of  surprise 
to  him  to  find  that  he  was  still  regarded  as  a 
"  foreigner,"  and  in  a  fortnight's  time  he  was  dis- 
charged, not  having  as  yet  taken  up  his  freedom. 
"  This,"  says  he,  "  was  like  a  javelin  to  my  soul, 
especially  when  I  thought  I  had  left  Mrs.  Brad- 
ford, in  whose  house  I  had  lived  without  envy  or 
danger." 

After  this  he  became  a  "  smoulter,"  that  is, 
he  jobbed  about  from  one  office  to  another,  and 
this  kind  of  work  afforded  him  a  tolerable  sub- 
sistence, and  made  him  just  a  little  proud,  so 
that  when  he  met  Mears  he  did  not  show  him 
"  the  least  respect  but  scorn." 


76          SKETCHES  OF   BOOKSELLERS 

After  some  months  had  passed  he  heard  of  a 
Mr.  White,  of  York,  who  wanted  a  journeyman 
at  the  business.  Mr.  White  offered  him  j£iB  a 
year,  besides  board,  washing,  and  lodging.  He 
agreed,  and,  on  April  i2th,  1714,  he  set  off  on 
foot  from  London  for  York.  On  his  arrival  he 
says : 

"  The  first  house  I  entered  to  inquire  for  my 
new  master  was  in  a  printer's  at  Petergate — the 
very  dwelling  that  is  now  my  own,  by  purchase; 
but  not  finding  Mr.  White  therein,  a  child  brought 
me  to  his  door,  which  was  opened  by  the  head 
maiden,  that  is  now  my  dear  spouse.  She  ushered 
me  into  the  chamber  where  Mrs.  White  lay  some- 
thing ill  in  bed,  but  the  old  gentleman  was  at  his 
dinner  by  the  fireside,  sitting  in  a  noble  armchair 
with  a  good  large  pie  before  him,  and  made  me 
partake  heartily  with  him.  I  had  a  guinea  in  my 
shoe  lining,  which  I  pulled  out  to  ease  my  foot ; 
at  which  the  old  gentleman  smiled  and  pleasantly 
said  it  was  more  than  he  had  ever  seen  a  journey- 
man save  before.  I  could  not  but  smile  too,  be- 
cause that  my  trunk,  with  my  clothes  and  eight 
guineas,  was  sent  about  a  month  before  to  Ireland, 
where  I  was  resolved  to  go  and  see  my  friends, 
had  his  place  not  offered  to  me  as  it  did." 

Mr.  White  had  plenty  of  business  to  employ 
several  persons,  there  being  few  printers  in  Eng- 
land at  that  time  except  in  London.  He  was 
King's  printer  for  York  and  five  counties,  which 


THOMAS   GENT  77 

appointment  he  obtained  through  having  printed 
the  Prince  of  Orange's  declaration  when  it  had 
been  refused  by  all  the  printers  in  London.  The 
death  of  Queen  Anne  at  Kensington,  on  July 
2 gth,  occasioned  the  proclamation  of  King 
George  I.  on  August  3rd  following,  at  York,  and 
" it  was,"  says  Gent,  "on  the  steps  of  the  mag- 
nificent cathedral  that  I  perceived  the  comely, 
tall  presence  of  the  most  illustrious  prelate  Sir 
William  Dawes,  the  Archbishop,  in  company  with 
the  Lord  Mayor  and  chief  citizens  by  whom  the 
ceremony  was  performed." 

He  made  himself  as  comfortable  as  possible 
with  Mr.  White  till  his  year  was  out,  but  he 
would  not  agree  to  stay  with  him  any  longer  till 
he  had  seen  his  friends  in  Ireland.  Meanwhile 
"  he  vented  the  diversity  of  his  flowing  pas- 
sions "  in  a  long  poem  of  thirty -six  stanzas,  in 
which  he  tells  the  story  of  his  early  days  and  his 
various  adventures  down  to  the  time  of  writing. 
I  will  quote  the  first  two  verses  and  the  last  but 
one.  The  first  verse  presents  the  kingdom  of 
Ireland  in  the  eighteenth  century  as  in  a  more 
happy  state  of  peace  and  contentment  than  that 
in  which  it  has  been  customary  to  regard  it 
during  the  nineteenth  century. 


78          SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

"  In  fair  Hibernia  first  I  sucked  in  breath, 

A  pleasant  isle,  where  spreading  plenty  flows, 

A  kingdom  which,  of  all  the  realms  on  earth, 
Is  sure  most  happy,  free  from  mortal  foes, 

Where  wars  and  animosities  do  cease, 

And,  'midst  of  war,  enjoys  a  silent  peace. 

"  Of  meek  and  gentle  parents  dear  I  came, 
Whose  great  delight  was  once  in  me  their  son  ; 

Who  though  for  greatness  they  bore  not  a  name, 
Yet  for  proximic  virtue,  bright  have  shown  ; 

Were  rich  in  grace,  though  not  in  glittering  ore, — 

They  had  enough,  and  who  need  value  more  ?  " 

He  goes  on  to  tell  of  his  apprenticeship  in  his 
thirteenth  year,  and  "  three  years  with  a  tyrant, 
strove  to  live,"  and  then  he  bolted,  as  has 
been  already  told.  In  the  thirty-fifth  verse  (the 
last  but  one)  he  writes  : 

"And  now  to  ancient  Ebor's  city  come, 

Perchance  I  may  some  time  recline  my  head, 

Till  future  years  shall  make  me  spring  in  bloom, 
Or  I,  through  fate,  or  all  my  foes,  be  dead  ; 

Which  way  it  will,  I  trust  that  God  will  be 

My  guardian  here  and  in  eternity." 

Miss  Alice  Guy,  the  young  woman  who 
"opened  the  door  to  him,"  was  the  daughter 
of  a  schoolmaster  at  Ingleton  ;  she  seems  to 
have  been  a  girl  of  considerable  attractions. 
He  was  evidently  smitten  by  her  charms,  but  he 
never  told  his  love,  because  he  had  no  desire  for 


THOMAS  GENT  79 

matrimony  till  he  could  afford  to  give  his  wife  a 
handsome  maintenance.  His  master's  grandson, 
Mr.  Charles  Bourne,  a  deserving  young  fellow, 
was  also  one  of  her  admirers.  Being  now  on 
the  point  of  starting  for  Ireland,  he  told  Miss 
Guy  that  he  should  respect  her  as  one  of  his 
dearest  friends  ;  she  presented  him  with  a  little 
dog  as  a  companion  on  the  road.  His  rival, 
young  Bourne,  and  several  of  his  late  com- 
panions accompanied  him  as  far  as  Bramham 
Moor  on  May  15,  and  after  numerous  adven- 
tures at  sea,  and  having  been  cast  away  on  the 
Isle  of  Man,  where  he  remained  some  weeks,  he 
eventually  arrived  in  Dublin. 

During  his  stay  at  Douglas  he  came  in  con- 
tact one  rainy  evening  in  a  public-house  with  an 
atheistical  exciseman,  and  when  he  was  inno- 
cently praising  God  for  His  preservation  of  his 
ship's  company,  he  deridingly  mocked,  and 
hinted  as  if  Almighty  God  had  no  hand  in 
human  concerns  that  way.  "  No,  no,"  said  he, 
"  think  not  that  your  preservation  was  any  con- 
cern of  His."  On  this  subject  they  had  a  long 
discussion  : 

"Though  I  was  but  young,"  said  he,  "to 
engage  with  a  man  of  his  age  and  capacity,  with 


80          SKETCHES  OF   BOOKSELLERS 

a  sort  of  mathematical  genius,  yet  I  argued  as 
well  as  I  could  from  the  Holy  Scriptures.  .  .  . 
He  called  me  a  poor,  pious  philosopher.  The 
company  round  seemed  mightily  pleased  with 
what  I  said,  called  him  an  atheistical  foolish  un- 
mannerly fellow,  and  told  him  that  he  had  now 
met  with  his  match — upon  this  he  flung  away  in 
a  huff." 

The  company  were  very  well  pleased  at  his 
absence,  and  they  treated  our  orator  willingly. 

" '  When  I  reached  my  father's  house,  as  our 
dutiful  custom  is  there,  I  fell  on  my  knees  to  ask 
his  blessing.  The  good  old  man  took  me  up 
with  tears  in  his  eyes,  blessed  me,  saying, 
'Tommy,  I  hardly  knew  thee.'  My  mother 
being  at  my  sister  Standish's,  I  went  thither, 
and  found  her  in  the  parlour,  and  she  as  little 
knew  me,  till,  falling  in  the  same  position,  I  dis- 
covered her  wandering  son.  The  children,  my 
nephews  and  nieces,  ran  out  of  the  pleasant 
garden  to  behold  their  uncle,  and,  in  short,  I 
was  as  much  made  of  as  my  heart  could  desire ; 
but  the  most  fond  of  me  was  my  dear  niece,  Ann 
Standish,  a  perfect  beauty." 

Gent  soon  engaged  himself  with  Mr.  Thomas 
Hume,  a  printer,  but  he  had  not  been  there 
long  before  he  met  with  "  a  sad  persecution  " 
from  his  old  master,  Powell,1  who  employed 

1  Dunton  says  of  this  man  :  "  His  person  is  handsome, 
and  his  mind  has  many  charms.  He  is  the  very  life  and 


THOMAS   GENT  8 1 

officers  to  seize  him  for  running  away  from  his 
apprenticeship.  This,  he  says,  "was  a  cutting 
stroke,  and  with  extreme  sorrow  pierced  me, 
even,  I  may  say,  to  the  very  marrow  of  my 
soul."  His  father  and  his  brother-in-law  offered 
Powell  a  certain  sum  for  his  releasement. 

"  But  this  made  him  insist  the  more ;  so  that, 
upon  due  consideration,  finding  there  was  no 
other,  indeed  no  better  remedy,  that  the  best  of 
men  have  their  troubles,  that  King  George  him- 
self just  then  had  an  unnatural  rebellion  raised 
in  his  kingdom,  that  nothing  could  be  worse  to 
me  than  Powell's  tyranny,  ...  I  determined  to 
leave  my  native  country  once  more.  About  that 
time  I  received  a  letter  from  my  dearest,  at 
York,  that  I  was  expected  thither,  and  thither 
too,  purely  again  to  enjoy  her  company,  was  I 
resolved  to  direct  my  course." 

On  July  8  he  took  leave  of  his  friends.  On 
the  1 3th  he  reached  Liverpool. 

[At  this  point  there  is  another  break  in  the 
narrative,  and  when  it  is  resumed  he  is  on  his 
way  to  London,  having  apparently  spent  some 
time  in  York  in  the  years  1715  and  1716.] 

Now  we  find  him  again  employed  by  his  old 

spirit  where  he  comes,  and  it  is  impossible  to  be  sad  if  he 
sets  upon  it ;  he  is  a  man  of  a  great  wit  and  sense,  and  I 
hope  as  much  honesty.  .  .  .  He  is  a  good  man,  and  a 
good  printer,  as  well  as  a  good  companion. " 

G 


82  SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

friend,  Midwinter,  and  fighting  Henry  Lingard, 
one  of  his  fellow  apprentices. 

"Lingard  swore  he  would  fight  me  whether  I 
would  or  no.  I  gave  him  all  the  good  words  I 
could  to  be  quiet,  but  in  vain.  .  .  .  '  I  wish,' 
said  I,  '  they  that  put  you  on,  like  a  dog,  to  worry 
me,  would  appear  as  open  as  you  do  ! '  '  Dog  ! ' 
said  he.  With  that  he  lets  drive  the  first  stroke, 
which  obliged  me  to  return  his  salutation.  I 
beat  him  heartily  in  the  case  room,  and  then  we 
tumbled  like  fighting  cats,  downstairs  amongst 
the  presses.  The  lye-trough  standing  at  the 
bottom,  he  happened  to  fall  with  his  head 
therein,  when  that  unholy  liquid  smeared  him 
to  some  purpose ;  we  descended  down  another 
pair  of  grades,  where  the  paper-bank  tumbled 
after  us  for  company  into  the  back-kitchen,  and, 
notwithstanding  his  great  strength,  it  was  my 
happy  fortune,  through  God's  good  providence, 
to  give  him  that  just,  though  severe  correction, 
that  he  ran  howling  like  a  dog  indeed  that  had 
lost  his  ears  to  complain  of  me  to  his  indulgent 
parents.  .  .  .  Afterwards  never  young  persons 
proved  better  friends  than  he  and  I  together." 

Shortly  after  this  he  received  a  letter  from 
"  his  dear  "  at  York,  referring  clearly  to  some- 
thing mentioned  in  the  missing  pages  telling 
him  that  "  the  poor  condemned  persons  had 
been  hanged  for  stealing  three  halfpence ! " 
which  after  all  it  appears  they  did  not  steal. 
The  story  told  is  rambling  and  confused,  but 


THOMAS   GENT  83 

a   very  touching    one,    though    too    long   for 
quotation. 

It  appears  that  Mrs.  White,  the  widow  of  his 
old  employer  in  York,  was  so  touched  by  the 
speeches  of  the  two  men,  Barren  and  Bourne, 
before  they  were  hanged  at  Tyburn,  York,  that 
she  determined  to  print  their  speeches,  in  which 
two  men  who  were  the  means  of  bringing  them 
to  the  gallows,  named  Jackson  and  King,  were 
characterized  as  perjurers.  These  men  prose- 
cuted poor  Mrs.  White,  judgment  went  against 
her,  and  she  lost  "near  fourscore  pounds."  Mr. 
Gent  says : 

"  I  should  not  have  mentioned  this  shocking 
digression  if  I  had  not  ascertained  how  much 
Mrs.  White  was  affected  by  my  absence.  Often 
would  she  say  to  my  dearest,  "  Alas !  had  poor 
Gent  been  with  me !  Though  young,  he  was 
adorned  with  prudence,  and  I  am  sure  would 
not  have  done  anything  whereby  I  could  have 
been  hurt  in  this  barbarous  manner.  How  does 
he  do  ?  Does  he  never  write  to  you  ?  I  wonder 
what's  the  reason  he  never  lets  me  know  so 
much  as  how  he  lives." 

After  this  Mrs.  White  continued  for  some 
time  in  a  languishing  condition,  "attended  care- 
fully by  my  dear."  Her  death  was  universally 
lamented. 


84  SKETCHES  OF   BOOKSELLERS 

In  the  year  1717  he  had  the  great  happiness 
of  being  made  freeman  of  the  Company  of 
Stationers,  and  on  October  gth  commenced 
citizen  of  London  at  Guildhall.  Shortly  after 
this  his  parents  informed  him  that  his  first 
master,  Powell,  had  accepted  ^5  for  his  dis- 
charge, with  a  willing  heart,  wishing  him  all 
manner  of  happiness.  Thus  he  was  absolutely 
free  both  in  England  and  Ireland,  which  made 
him  "  give  sincere  thanks  to  the  Almighty  from 
the  inmost  recesses  of  his  soul." 

Now  finding  himself  free,  though  not  quite 
sufficiently  furnished  for  marriage,  he  decided 
to  make  another  trip  to  York.  On  telling  Mid- 
winter that  he  was  going  to  leave  him,  he  called 
him  a  Jesuitical  dog,  and  bade  him  go  at  once. 
"  Sir,"  said  he,  "  have  you  no  copies  of  mine  in 
your  trunk  which  you  may  think  to  get  printed 
in  another  place?  "  "  Well,  master,"  answered 
I,  "  this  wounds  me  more  than  the  worst  action 
you  could  have  done  by  me ;  here's  the  key — 
open  it,  take  them  if  you  find  such,  and  seize 
everything  I  have."  Mrs.  Midwinter  interposed, 
and  eventually  things  were  made  pleasant. 

He  did  not  then  go  to  York,  but  he  kept  up 
correspondence  with  his  "  dear."  After  various 


THOMAS   GENT  85 

employments  in  London,  and  after  urgent  re- 
quest from  his  parents,  he  once  more  found  his 
way  to  Ireland.  There  for  some  time  he  was 
employed  with  Mr.  Hume,  and  although  he 
could  but  obtain  common  subsistence,  his  affec- 
tion for  his  dear  parents  took  all  thoughts  of 
further  advantages  away, 

"  till  Mr.  Alexander  Campbell,  a  Scotchman  in 
the  same  printing  office,  getting  me  in  liquour, 
made  me  promise  to  accompany  him  to  England, 
where  there  was  greater  likelihood  of  prosperity." 

Accordingly  he  agreed  to  go,  to  the  great 
grief  of  his  parents.  "  What,  Tommy,"  said  his 
mother,  "this  English  damsel  of  yours,  I  sup- 
pose, is  the  chiefest  reason  why  you  slight  us 
and  your  native  country.  .  .  .  Whether  I  live  to 
see  you  again  or  no  I  shall  pray  God  to  be  your 
defender  and  preserver." 

He  and  his  friend  embarked  for  England, 
reached  Holyhead,  climbed  over  Penmaenmawr, 
and  eventually  arrived  at  Chester,  where  he  left 
his  friend.  On  arriving  at  London  he  found 
employment  with  Mr.  Watts.  Mr.  Knight  re- 
minds us  that  this  Mr.  John  Watts  was  the 
partner  of  Jacob  Tonson.  He  carried  on  his 
business  in  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields  ;  it  was  in  this 


86          SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

office  that  a  youth  of  nineteen,  who  turned  out 
to  be  a  far  greater  man  than  Gent,  worked  for 
some  time,  viz.,  Benjamin  Franklin.  He  was 
called  the  Water  American,  and  in  his  "  Auto- 
biography "  he  states  that  he  drank  only  water, 
whilst  his  companion  at  the  press  drank  every 
day  a  pint  of  ale  before  breakfast,  a  pint  at  his 
breakfast,  a  pint  between  breakfast  and  dinner, 
a  pint  at  dinner,  a  pint  in  the  afternoon,  and 
another  when  he  finished  work — his  own  exam- 
ple caused  many  of  his  companions  to  give  up 
this  muddling  beer  and  drink  hot  water  gruel 
sprinkled  with  pepper. 

He  was  enticed  away  from  this  highly  respect- 
able establishment  by  a  Mr.  Clifton,  a  Roman 
Catholic,  who  employed  him  in  a  variety  of  ways 
for  some  time  and  with  whom  he  got  into  much 
trouble.  Clifton  had  found  it  necessary  to  move 
his  goods  into  the  Liberty  of  the  Fleet,  and 
there  became  entered  as  a  prisoner. 

"  He  paid  me  honestly  almost  every  week,  as 
my  constancy  and  my  labour  deserved.  Some- 
times in  extreme  weather  have  I  worked  under 
a  mean  shed  adjoining  the  prison  wall,  when 
snow  and  rain  have  fallen  alternately  on  the 
cases.  Yet  the  number  of  wide-mouthed  sten- 
torian hawkers,  brisk  trade,  and  very  often  a 


THOMAS  GENT  8/ 

glass  of  good  ale  nerved  the  drooping  spirits  of 
me  and  other  workmen.  ...  I  remember  once 
a  piece  of  work  came  from  a  reverend  Bishop 
vindicating  the  reputation  of  a  clergyman  who 
had  been  committed  to  the  King's  Bench  through 
an  action  of  scandalum  magnatum,  .  .  .  and 
though  I  composed  the  letters,  I  was  not  allowed 
to  know  who  was  the  author.  The  same  night 
these  were  packed,  my  master  and  I  hiring  a 
coach  were  driven  to  Westminster,  where  we 
entered  a  large  monastic  building." 

They  were  soon  ushered  into  a  spacious  hall, 
where  they  found  on  a  table  a  bottle  of  wine 
placed  for  their  entertainment.  They  were  visited 
by  a  grave  man  in  black.  He  told  them  to  be 
secret,  "for,"  said  he,  "the  imprisoned  divine 
does  not  know  who  is  his  defender."  "You 
need  not  fear  me,"  said  my  master ;  and  "  I, 
good  sir,"  added  I,  "  you  may  be  less  afraid  of; 
for  I  protest  I  do  not  know  where  I  am,  much 
less  your  person.  ...  I  shall  forget  I  ever  did 
the  job  to-morrow  and  I  shall  drink  to  your 
health  with  this  brimful  glass."  This  set  them 
both  a  laughing,  and  truly  I  was  got  merrily 
tipsy,  so  merry  that  I  hardly  know  how  I  was 
driven  home  afterwards." 

Happening  afterwards  to  behold  a  state  pri- 
soner in  a  coach,  guarded  from  Westminster  to 


88          SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

the  Tower,  "  God  bless  me,  thought  I,  it  was  no 
less  than  the  Bishop  of  Rochester,  Dr.  Atterbury,1 
by  whom  my  master  and  I  had  been  treated." 

Madam  Midwinter  now  did  all  she  could  to 
get  him  back,  but  without  avail ;  he  continued 
to  work  with  the  seemingly  disreputable  Clifton, 
and  a  few  months  afterwards  Mrs.  Midwinter 
died,  Feb.  10,  1719-20,  and  was  buried  in  Isling- 
ton churchyard  near  the  steeple.  He  attended 
the  funeral,  and  wrote  an  epitaph,  of  which  this 
is  the  first  verse  : 

"Lo  !  underneath  this  heap  of  mould 

My  mistress  dear  is  laid  ; 
A  wife  none  better  could  be  loved, 

None  chaster  when  a  maid." 

On  one  occasion  he  was  sent  by  Midwinter  to 
write  a  description  of  the  assizes  at  Kingston,  and 
he  gives  an  account  of  the  various  trials.  One 
of  them  was  that  of  a  wretched  sexton  for  steal- 
ing dead  bodies  out  of  their  graves  and  selling 
them,  as  represented  in  "  The  Beggar's  Opera," 
"  to  those  fleaing  rascals,  the  surgeons  " ;  the 
sexton  was  cleared  of  the  new  indictment  because 

1  Bishop  Atterbury,  regarded  as  indisputably  the  best 
preacher  of  his  day,  was  sent  to  the  Tower  for  treason, 
deprived  of  all  his  offices,  and  banished  for  ever  from  the 
realm. 


THOMAS  GENT  89 

he  had  already  suffered  a  year's  imprisonment 
for  a  similar  misdemeanour. 

Eventually  Gent  left  Midwinter  and  purchased 
some  old  type  and  a  fount  of  new  pica  of  Mrs. 
Bodingham,  resolving  to  venture  on  the  world 
anew  with  his  "  dearest."  Shortly  afterwards  he 
was  taken  ill  and  went  to  bed,  but  about  two 
o'clock  in  the  morning  he  was  roused  up,  and, 
in  dreadful  pain  as  he  was,  dragged  out  of  bed 
by  a  King's  messenger,  and  carried  off  to  prison, 
because  he  was  suspected  of  writing  something 
about  the  Bishop  of  Rochester.  Midwinter  and 
Clifton  were  also  imprisoned  with  him.  Nothing, 
however,  was  proved  against  him,  and  he  was 
discharged.  Then,  his  stock  of  goods  growing 
larger  by  careful  industry,  he  set  up  his  press 
near  the  Fleet  Prison,  and  there  he  wrote  and 
published  some  things  relating  to  the  Bishop 
that  made  amends  for  what  he  had  suffered 
through  wrong  information  on  his  account ;  and 
now  he  began  to  imagine  that  after  some  little 
time  he  should  have  occasion  to  invite  his 
"  dear  "  to  London  ;  but,  alas  !  the  course  of 
true  love  never  did  run  smoothly  with  him.  A 
Mr.  John  Hoyle  called  on  him  : 

"  '  Mr.  Gent,'  said  he,  '  I  have  been  to  York 


90          SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

to  see  my  parents,  and  am  but  just  returned  to 
London.  I  am  heartily  glad  to  see  you,  but 
sorry  to  tell  you  that  you  have  lost  your  old 
sweetheart,  for  I  assure  you  that  she  is  really 
married  to  your  rival,  Mr.  Bourne.'  I  was  so 
thunderstruck  that  I  could  scarcely  return  an 
answer.  .  .  .  The  consideration  of  spending  my 
substance  on  a  business  I  would  not  have  en- 
gaged in  but  for  her  sake ;  my  own  remissness 
occasioned  this,  and  after  all  she  could  not  be 
much  blamed  for  mending  her  fortune." 

This  disaster,  brought  about  by  his  own  dila- 
toriness,  caused  his  "  old  vein  of  poetry  to  flow 
in  upon  him,"  and  so  he  obtained  some  vent  for 
his  passion.  The  poem  comprises  eight  verses 
of  eight  lines,  entitled  "The  Forsaken  Lover's 
Letter  to  his  Former  Sweetheart."  The  first 
two  lines  are  a  fair  sample  of  the  whole : 

"  What  means  my  dearest,  my  sweet  lovely  creature, 
Thus  for  to  leave  me  to  languish  alone  ?  " 

He  got  a  neighbouring  printer,  Mr.  Dodd,  to 
print  the  poem,  who  sold  thousands  of  them,  for 
which  he  offered  to  pay  him,  "  but,"  says  he, 
"as  it  was  my  own  proper  concern,  I  scorned  to 
accept  of  anything,  except  a  glass  of  comfort  or 
so.  I  became  so  gracious  with  him  and  his 
spouse  that  if  I  did  not  often  visit  them  they 
would  be  offended.  Yet  here  I  perceived  some- 


THOMAS   GENT  QI 

thing  in  matrimony  that  might  have  weaned  me 
from  affection  that  way;  for  this  couple  often 
jarred  for  very  trifling  occasions.  .  .  .  Once  he 
threw  a  thing  at  her  which  hit  me  in  the  head 
and  set  me  bleeding,  at  which  they  were  mightily 
concerned,  and  craved  pardon,  which  I  readily 
granted,  though  I  came  not  so  frequently  after- 
wards." 

This  outpouring  of  his  soul  in  poetry  greatly 
relieved  his  mind  and  he  set  to  work  again. 

He  again  found  employment  with  Mr.  Watts 
for  some  time,  but  left  him,  owing  apparently  to 
his  mania  for  writing.  Mr.  Woodfall  recom- 
mended him  to 

"the  ingenious  Mr.  Richardson,  in  Salisbury 
Court,  with  whom  I  stayed  to  finish  his  part  of 
the  Dictionary  which  he  had  from  the  Book- 
sellers', composed  of  English,  Greek,  and  He- 
brew." 

Afterwards  he  wrought  in  the  house  of  Mrs. 
Susannah  Collins,  where  he  lived  for  some  time 
in  great  felicity — but  trouble  with  her  son  caused 
him  to  leave — and  then  it  happened  that  the 
widow  of  the  late  Mr.  Dodd,  who  had  desired 
on  his  death-bed,  to  get  him  to  assist  her  when- 
ever opportunity  served,  wanted  a  person  to 
manage  her  printing  business. 


92          SKETCHES   OF  BOOKSELLERS 

As  he  was  disappointed  of  his  first  love  he  had 
formed  the  intention  of  disposing  of  his  materials, 
and  was  therefore  the  more  willing  to  enter  into 
the  employment  of  this  gentlewoman,  and  he 
soon  found  that  her  conversation  and  fine  edu- 
cation "almost  wounded  him  with  love,"  par- 
ticularly as  he  must  never  expect  to  see  his  first 
love  again. 

"  But  see  the  wonderful  effects  of  Divine  Pro- 
vidence in  all  things  !  .  .  .  One  Sunday  morning 
Mr.  Philip  Wood  entering  my  chambers,  where 
I  sometimes  used  to  employ  him  too,  when  slack 
of  business  in  other  places,  '  Tommy,'  said  he, 
'  all  these  fine  materials  of  yours  must  be  removed 
to  York,'  at  which,  wondering,  'What  mean  you?' 
said  I.  'Aye,'  said  he,  'and  you  must  go  too, 
without  it's  your  own  fault ;  for  your  first  sweet- 
heart is  now  at  liberty,  and  left  in  good  circum- 
stances by  her  dear  spouse,  who  deceased  but  of 
late.'  '  I  pray  heaven,'  said  I,  '  that  his  precious 
soul  may  be  happy,  and,  for  aught  I  know,  it 
may  be  as  you  say,  for  indeed  I  think  I  may  not 
trifle  with  a  widow  as  I  have  formerly  done  with 
a  maid.' " 

He  told  his  mistress  that  he  had  business  in 
Ireland,  as  an  excuse  for  starting  off  at  once  for 
York,  promising  her  that  he  would  be  back  in  a 
month ;  if  not,  he  had  left  everything  in  order, 
so  that  she  might  carry  on  the  business  with  any 


THOMAS   GENT  93 

other  person  ;  but  she  said  she  would  not  have 
anyone  in  the  business  but  him,  and  she  should 
expect  him  to  return.  Respectfully  taking  leave 
of  her,  he  never  beheld  her  again,  but  he  heard 
that  she  was  very  indifferently  married. 

He  took  leave  of  his  friends  at  the  Black  Swan, 
in  Holborn,and  started  in  the  stage-coach,  which 
landed  him  safely  in  York  in  four  days.  There 
he  found  his  "  dearest "  once  more,  though  much 
altered  from  what  she  was  ten  years  ago,  when 
he  saw  her  last.  "  There  was  no  need  for  new 
courtship,"  he  writes,  but  decency  suspended  the 
ceremony  of  marriage  for  some  months.  Even 
now  things  did  not  go  quite  smoothly :  his 
dearest's  uncle,  Mr.  White,  at  Newcastle,  was 
very  much  against  them,  though  his  own  parents 
sent  him  their  blessing.  His  goods  arrived  from 
London,  adding  greatly  to  the  former  printing 
office,  and  notwithstanding  all  opposition  from 
the  uncle  the  nuptials  were  performed  by  the 
Rev. Mr.  Knight,  on  the  loth  of  December,  1724, 
in  the  stately  cathedral  dedicated  to  St.  Peter. 

Thus  ends  the  first  part  of  Gent's  career.  We 
now  find  him  established  at  York,  changed  from 
the  late  condition  of  a  servant  to  be  a  master, 
from  a  citizen  of  London  to  the  like  at  York. 


94          SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

His  first  trouble  was  in  the  management  of  his 
servants,  who  for  a  time  proved  to  be  as  insub- 
ordinate to  him  as  they  had  previously  been  to 
their  too  kind  mistress,  the  widow  ;  but  what 
concerned  him  most  was  that  he  found  the  widow, 
his  wife,  not  altogether  as  angelic  as  his  fond 
fancy  had  painted  her. 

"  '  I  found  her  temper,'  says  he,  '  much  altered 
from  that  sweet  natural  softness  and  most  tender 
affection  that  rendered  her  so  amiable  to  me 
while  I  was  more  juvenile  and  she  a  maiden.  Not 
less  sincere,  I  must  own,  but  with  that  presump- 
tive air  and  conceited  opinion  .  .  that  made  me 
imagine  an  epidemical  distemper  reigned  among 
the  good  women.' " 

However,  he  wisely  remembered  that  he  was 
but  a  novice  in  the  ways  of  matrimony,  so  he  re- 
solved to  accept  with  a  sort  of  stoical  resolution 
some  very  harsh  rules,  that  otherwise  would  have 
grated  on  his  human  understanding,  and  likewise 
in  a  Christian  sense,  to  make  his  yoke  as  easy  as 
possible,  thereby  to  give  no  offence  to  custom  or 
law  of  any  kind. 

Then  his  dear  wife's  uncle,  White,  who  had  a 
printing  office  in  Newcastle-on-Tyne,  gave  him 
much  anxiety.  He  had  done  all  he  could  to  pre- 
vent their  marriage,  and  now  he  vowed  that  he 


THOMAS   GENT  95 

would  oppose  him  to  the  very  utmost  of  his 
power;  the  servants  too,  who  were  most  ungovern- 
able before  his  marriage,  proved  very  little  better; 
they  loitered  away  their  time  and  were  quite  idle 
in  his  absence,  so  that,  says  he,  "  I  became  sorry 
almost  to  death  that  I  was  ever  placed  over  such 
incorrigible  wretches." 

His  parents,  who  had  approved  of  his  marriage, 
growing  very  ancient,  desired  once  more  to  see 
him,  and  to  pay  over  to  him  certain  moneys  he 
had  intrusted  them  with  ;  so  with  the  consent 
of  his  "  spouse,  who  was  then  pretty  far  gone 
with  child,"  he  yielded  to  their  desire  and  set 
forth.  He  was  very  nearly  shipwrecked,  but 
eventually  arrived  safely  in  Dublin,  where  he 
found  his  mother  languishing  upon  her  death- 
bed, and  his  poor  father  in  a  weak  condition.  He 
continued  with  them  about  a  fortnight,  but  whilst 
occupied  in  their  behalf  he  received 

"  a  letter  from  my  spouse  :  that  her  villainous 
uncle,  being  come  again  from  Newcastle,  was 
setting  up,  against  us,  a  printing  office,  with  one 
Robert  Ward,  and  therefore  she  desired  my  quick 
return." 

Accordingly  he  took  shipping  as  early  as  pos- 
sible and  after  a  pleasant  voyage  reached  Liver- 
pool ;  thence  he  hired  a  brave,  strong  horse  and 


96          SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

rode  home  at  pleasure.  He  had  not  rode,  so  he 
says,  more  than  a  few  miles,  but  overtaking  a 
good-looking  countryman  and  falling  into  dis- 
course with  him, 

"  I  asked  him  what  news  was  stirring?  who 
answered,  'Sir,  I  know  of  nothing  more  or  greater 
than  that  this  day  (November  3rd,  1725)  is  to  be 
hanged  the  greatest  rogue  in  England,  called 
Jonathan  Wild.'  I  had  seen  that  thief-catcher 
several  times  about  the  Old  Bailey,  and  particu- 
larly took  notice  of  him  when  he  rode  trium- 
phantly, with  pistols  before  the  criminals,  whilst 
conveying  them  to  the  place  of  execution." 

The  next  day  he  continued  his  journey  and 
about  midnight,  to  the  great  joy  of  his  spouse 
(since  matrimony  the  "  dear  "  has  dropped  out), 
who  told  him  that  her  barbarous  uncle  had  dined 
with  her  in  his  absence,  which  "  showed  the  fel- 
low was  a  perfect  compound  of  nonsense,  villainy, 
hypocrisy,  and  impudence."  The  uncle  published 
a  newspaper  in  conjunction  with  Ward,  who  had 
been  his  father's  footboy  but  who  had  married 
a  wife  with  a  fortune  and  set  up  as  a  master 
printer. 

"They  cried  up  their  newspaper  almost  in  the 
same  breath  they  ran  down  mine,  with  that  eager 
bitterness  of  spirit  which  they  had  instilled  into 
them.  .  .  .  His  business  was  to  go  to  the  houses 


THOMAS  GENT  97 

of  my  customers,  and  substituting  his  papers  in 
the  room  of  what  I  sent,  and  the  prices  were 
lowered  by  one-third ;  supposing  their  riches  in 
Newcastle  would  support  through  all  expenses 
whilst  they  endeavoured  to  ruin  me  at  York.  .  .  . 
What  a  vast  disparity  was  now  from  my  former 
condition  in  London,  enjoying  plenty  of  business 
and  beloved  by  the  best;  oppressed  in  York,  and, 
as  it  were,  prosecuted  by  a  tyrannical  villain.  .  .  . 
But  it  was  not  long  before  his  partner,  Ward, 
failed  for  debt,  and  was  glad  to  become  my 
journeyman,  whom  I  screened,  though  he  had 
threatened  my  ruin." 

In  October,  1725,  his  dear  spouse  was  brought 
to  bed  with  a  son,  who  died  in  the  following 
year.  It  was  a  most  beautiful  child. 

"  I  wished  for  its  life,"  says  he,  "  but  I  was 
not  very  sorry  to  think  of  its  death,  considering 
what  it  might  have  been  exposed  to  through 
oppression  of  its  woful  parents  by  the  villain 
aforesaid,  who  was  plotting  our  ruin  to  the 
utmost  of  his  power." 

It  was  in  the  year  1726  that  he  got  in  trouble 
through  the  issue  of  some  copies  of  his  news- 
paper without  their  being  stamped,  for  which  he 
was  liable  to  a  penalty  of  fifty  pounds.  He  was 
able  to  prove,  however,  that  this  had  been  done 
by  a  servant  of  his,  who  had  been  corrupted  to 
print  an  unstamped  copy :  one  that  had  been 
H 


98  SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

stamped  was  taken  from  a  customer's  house  and 
the  spurious  one  put  in  its  place ;  information 
was  made  to  a  magistrate,  and  he  was  sent  for, 
and  was  able  to  prove  his  innocence. 

In  1726  he  printed  some  books  learnedly- 
translated  into  English  by  Mr.  John  Clarke, 
schoolmaster  in  Hull. 

In  1728,  his  unmerciful  uncle  continued  to 
plot  against  him,  so  he  felt  himself  obliged  to 
contrive  some  business  rather  than  go  back  in 
the  world;  and  in  1729  he  issued  proposals  for 
the  publication  of  a  work  relating  to  the  antiqui- 
ties of  York.  To  his  astonishment,  old  Hildyard, 
a  neighbouring  bookseller,  sent  his  son  John  to 
tell  him  that  if  he  printed  anything  relating  to 
the  city  he  would  sue  him  in  an  action  of  two 
thousand  pounds  damages.  The  father  had 
printed  a  book  of  the  mayors  and  sheriffs  of 
York  already,  and  would  have  no  other  to  be 
done. 

"  This  put  me  on  viewing  the  book.  I  found 
that  his  production  was  mere  theft  from  a 
lawyer's  copy.  ...  I  returned  word  by  the 
said  coxcomb  to  the  old  fellow,  that  if  I  copied 
after  such  a  wretched  threadbare  piece  he  might 
arrest  me  if  he  pleased,  so  turned  the  blockhead 
out  of  my  house." 


THOMAS   GENT  99 

In  1730  the  great  work  was  published,  under 
the  title  "  The  Ancient  and  Modern  History  of 
the  famous  City  of  York,  and  in  a  particular 
manner  of  its  magnificent  Cathedral,  commonly 
called  York  Minster,  and  the  whole  diligently 
collected  by  T.  G.,  York,  1730,"  and  his  joy  was 
inexpressible  to  be  told  what  a  kind  reception  it 
met  with,  and  he  returned  thanks  to  Heaven 
that  he  had  written  what  was  thought  worthy  to 
be  read. 

"  I  had  several  admirers,  who  were  surprised 
to  think  a  person  so  obscure  as  I  was  generally 
deemed  should  have  the  courage  to  venture  on 
so  noble  and  pious  a  design ;  nor  was  I  free 
from  the  sarcastic  scoffs  of  others,  whose  envy 
was  far  superior  to  their  judgments ;  at  a  peram- 
bulation one  Mr.  Wiseacre  reported,  in  ridicule, 
what  a  parcel  of  stuff  I  had  collected,  '  such  as 
old  illegible  monuments  and  inscriptions  in 
churches,  before  the  days  of  their  ancient  gran- 
nams.'  'Aye,'  said  the  Rev.  Mr.  Knight,  'has 
he  done  so?  ...  I  will  buy  one  of  them  for 
my  serious  perusal,'  which  he  did,  and  was 
pleased  to  tell  me  that  what  I  had  collected 
deserved  a  larger  volume  and  a  better  price. 
Mr.  Hildyard,  from  an  enemy,  turned  my  friend, 
and  bought  and  sold  many." 

Thenceforward  for  some  years  he  brought 
out  many  books  of  his  own  writing  and  others. 


100   SKETCHES  OF  BOOKSELLERS 

Of  these  I  can  only  quote  some  of  the  titles  and 
dates. 

In  1731  he  printed  a  translation  of  "Oppian's 
Cynegeticks"  for  Dr.  Mawer,  and  the  supple- 
ment for  the  Polyglott  Bible. 

In  1732  he  printed  for  Mr.  Thomas  Baxter, 
a  schoolmaster,  "The  Circle  Squared,"  "but  as 
it  never  proved  of  any  effect,  it  was  converted 
to  waste  paper." 

In  1773  he  opened  a  printing  office  at  Scar- 
borough ;  and  at  York  he  also  published  his 
"  History  of  Ripon,  with  the  Antiquities  of  the 
Most  Noted  Towns  in  the  County." 

In  1734  he  printed  "Miscellanea  Curiosa" 
for  Mr.  Thomas  Turner,  "a  work  which  got 
credit  both  to  the  author  and  to  me  for  the 
beautiful  performance  thereof." 

In  1736  he  published  his  "History  of  Hull." 
There  was  also  published  in  the  same  year  a 
work  by  Mr.  Francis  Drake,  entitled  "  Ebora- 
cum,"  in  two  vols.  In  this  work  the  author 
patronisingly  says  thst : 

"  he  has  nothing  to  say  to  Mr.  Gent's  work,  but 
only  to  assure  my  contemporary  historian  that  I 
have  stolen  nothing  from  his  laborious  perform- 
ance. Whereas,  Mr.  T.  G.,  as  author,  printer, 
and  publisher  of  the  work  himself,  endeavouring 


THOMAS   GENT  IOI 

to  get  a  livelihood  for  his  family,  deserves  com- 
mendation for  his  industry." 

To  this  Gent  replies  at  some  length,  "  As  to 
his  stealing  anything  of  mine,  that  expression, 
so  exceedingly  vulgar,  might  well  have  been 
spared  in  a  polite  doctor,  since  such  are  seldom 
charged  with  theft,  except  stealing  people  out  of 
their  graves." 

In  1737  he  studied  music  on  the  harp,  flute, 
and  other  instruments. 

In  1738  he  wrote  and  printed  a  pastoral 
dialogue  on  the  death  of  the  Right  Hon.  and 
illustrious  Charles  Howard,  Earl  of  Carlisle, 
who  died  at  Bath,  May  ist,  "which  poem  was 
universally  received  with  kindness  and  appro- 
bation." 

In  January,  1739,  the  frost  being  extremely 
intense,  the  rivers  became  so  frozen  that  he 
printed  names  on  the  ice.  He  set  up  a  new 
kind  of  press,  only  a  roller  wrapped  about  with 
blankets.  He  was  reading  the  verses  he  had 
made  to  follow  the  names,  wherein  King  George 
was  most  loyally  inserted — the  ice  suddenly 
cracked  and  all  ran  away,  but  not  hearing  he 
remained — but  nothing  happened. 

In   1741,    having   printed   the    "News"   for 


102    SKETCHES  OF  BOOKSELLERS 

several  years,  for  want  of  encouragement  he 
was  obliged  to  give  it  up. 

In  the  two  following  years  he  seems  to  have 
been  engaged  in  litigation  about  his  premises, 
and  in  1744,  when  his  affairs  were  beginning  to 
decline,  his  narrative  closes,  and  it  does  not 
appear  that  he  ever  continued  the  story.  "  It 
would,"  says  the  editor  of  the  volume,  "  it  is  to 
be  feared,  have  been  but  a  narrative  of  a  course 
of  life  which  was  bound  in  shallows  and  in 
miseries.  .  .  .  New  and  more  enterprising 
printers  arose  in  that  northern  metropolis,  till 
at  length  Gent's  press  became  in  little  request. 
His  topographical  resources  were  exhausted  in 
his  three  works  on  York,  Ripon,  and  Hull,  and 
when  he  wrote  his  work  on  "  The  History  of 
the  East  Window  in  York  Minster,"  which  he 
published  in  1762,  he  was  sinking  under  age 
and  necessity." 

A  portrait  was  painted  of  him  by  one  of  the 
Drakes,  a  family  who  were  particularly  attentive 
to  him  in  his  old  age,  and  was  exhibited  for  his 
benefit. 

He  died  at  his  house  in  York  on  May  igth, 
1778,  in  the  eighty-seventh  year  of  his  age,  and 
was  interred  in  the  church  of  St.  Mary-le-Belfrey. 


VI.    ALICE    GUY. 

JHE  'subject  of  this  sketch  does  not 
properly  belong  to  that  of  "  Book- 
sellers of  Other  Days,"  but  it  has 
somewhat  to  do  with  an  old  book- 
seller's wife.  It  will  be  remembered  that  Alice 
Guy  was  the  young  person  who  "opened  the 
door  "  to  Thomas  Gent  and  subsequently  became 
his  spouse ;  it  will  also  be  remembered  that  she 
was  the  daughter  of  Richard  Guy,  a  school- 
master of  Ingleton  in  Yorkshire,  and  it  is  on 
his  account  mainly  that  I  have  written  this 
sketch.  Since  writing  about  Thomas  Gent,  I 
have  been  looking  through  "  The  Doctor,"  by 
Robert  Southey,  and  I  find  that  therein  he  has 
given  a  sketch  of  Gent  taken  from  the  same 
volume  as  that  from  which  my  story  sprang :  he 


104     SKETCHES  OF  BOOKSELLERS 

has  told  the  same  story  in  another  and  of  course 
a  better  way,  but  he  connects  Richard  Guy  not 
only  with  Gent,  who  printed  for  him  the  old 
poem  of  "  Flodden  Field,"  but  also  with  "The 
Doctor"  himself,  and  the  account  of  this 
connection  is  so  curious  and  amusing  that  I 
have  been  unable  to  resist  the  temptation  of 
endeavouring  to  tell  a  consecutive  story  out  of 
material  which  really  runs  through  nearly  200 
pages  of  "  The  Doctor."  Of  course  everybody 
knows  that  "  The  Doctor "  occupies  seven 
octavo  volumes,  compressed  subsequently  into 
one,  a  volume  of  about  700  pages  of  closely 
printed  double-column  matter  and  treats  de 
omnibus  rebus  et  quibusdam  aliis,  but  I  have 
limited  myself  to  "  The  Doctor  "  and  the  school- 
master. 

In  order  to  come  to  a  proper  understanding 
it  is  necessary  to  begin  our  sketch  at  the  begin- 
ning. Who  was  "  The  Doctor"  ?  "  The  Doctor" 
was  Doctor  Daniel  Dove — Daniel,  the  son  of 
Daniel  Dove  and  of  Dinah  his  wife,  was  born 
near  Ingleton,  in  the  West  Riding  of  Yorkshire, 
on  the  22nd  of  April,  old  style,  1723,  nine 
minutes  and  three  seconds  after  three  in  the 
afternoon.  Daniel,  the  father,  was  one  of  a 


ALICE  GUY  105 

race  of  men  who  unhappily  are  now  almost 
extinct.  He  was  commonly  called  "  Flossofer  " 
Daniel  by  his  neighbours.  He  lived  on  an  estate 
of  six-and-twenty  acres  which  his  fathers  pos- 
sessed before  him,  all  Doves  and  Daniels  in 
uninterrupted  succession  from  time  immemorial, 
farther  than  registers  or  title-deeds  could  ascend. 
Their  dwelling  was  a  bowshot  to  the  east  of  the 
church  called  Chapel-le-Dale,  and  the  inter- 
vening fields  belonged  to  the  family.  Happily 
for  Daniel,  he  lived  before  the  age  of  magazines, 
reviews,  cyclopaedias,  and  literary  newspapers. 
His  books  were  few  in  number  but  they  were 
all  weighty  in  matter  or  in  size.  He  had  looked 
into  all  these  books,  had  read  most  of  them, 
and  believed  all  he  read,  except  "Rabelais," 
which  he  could  not  tell  what  to  make  of. 
Having  nothing  to  desire  for  himself,  Daniel's 
ambition  had  taken  a  natural  direction,  and  was 
fixed  upon  his  son.  He  resolved  that  his  son 
should  be  made  a  scholar. 

Richard  Guy,  in  the  decline  of  life,  came  to 
settle  at  Ingleton,  in  the  humble  capacity  of 
schoolmaster.  He  was  the  person  to  whom  the 
lovers  of  Old  Rhyme  are  indebted  for  the  pre- 
servation of  the  old  poem  of  "Flodden  Field," 


106  SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

which  he  transcribed  from  an  old  manuscript, 
and  which  was  printed  from  his  transcript  by 
Thomas  Gent,  of  York.  In  his  way  through 
the  world,  which  had  not  been  along  the  king's 
high  Dunstable  road,  he  had  picked  up  a  com- 
petent share  of  Latin,  and  a  little  Greek,  some 
theoretical  and  practical  knowledge  of  physic, 
of  astrology  enough  to  cast  a  nativity,  and  he 
had  some  acquaintance  with  alchemy.  Five 
and  fifty  years  of  life  had  taught  him  none  of 
the  world's  wisdom,  but  he  had  a  wise  heart 
worth  all  other  wisdom.  As  a  schoolmaster  he 
never  consumed  birch  enough  to  have  made  a 
besom.  Young  Daniel  was  committed  to  his 
tuition  when  he  was  approaching  his  seventh  year. 

Daniel,  and  his  son  and  Richard  Guy,  were 
walking  together  one  day  when  young  Daniel, 
looking  up  in  his  father's  face,  proposed  this 
question :  "  Will  it  be  any  harm,  father,  if  I 
steal  five  beans  when  next  I  go  into  John 
Dowthwaite's,  if  I  can  do  it  without  anyone 
seeing  me  ?  " 

"And  what  wouldst  thou  steal  beans  for," 
was  the  reply,  "  when  anybody  would  give  them 
to  thee,  and  when  thou  knowest  there  are  plenty 
at  home  ?  " 


ALICE  GUY  IO7 

"  But  it  won't  do  to  have  them  given,  father," 
replied  the  boy ;  "  they  are  to  charm  away  my 
warts.  Uncle  William  says  I  must  steal  five 
beans,  a  bean  for  every  wart,  and  tie  them 
carefully  up  in  paper,  and  carry  them  to  a  place 
where  two  roads  cross,  and  then  drop  them,  and 
then  walk  away  without  ever  once  looking  be- 
hind me,  and  then  the  warts  will  go  away  from 
me,  and  come  upon  the  hands  of  the  person 
that  picks  up  the  beans." 

"  My  boy,"  the  father  made  answer,  "  if  thy 
warts  are  a  trouble  to  thee,  they  would  be  a 
trouble  to  anyone  else.  .  .  .  Have  nothing  to 
do  with  charms  like  that ! " 

"  May  I  steal  a  piece  of  raw  beef,  then,"  said 
the  boy,  "  and  rub  the  warts  with  it  and  bury  it  ? 
For  uncle  says  that  will  do,  and  as  the  beef  rots 
the  warts  will  die  away." 

"  Daniel,"  said  the  father,  "  there  can  be  no 
lawful  charms  that  begin  with  stealing.  I  could 
tell  thee  how  to  cure  thy  warts  in  a  better 
manner ;  there  is  an  infallible  way,  which  is 
by  washing  thy  hands  in  moonshine,  but  then 
the  moonshine  must  be  caught  in  a  bright 
silver  basin.  You  wash,  and  wash  in  the 
basin,  and  a  cold  moisture  will  be  felt  upon 


108  SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

the  hands,  proceeding  from  the  cold  rays  of 
the  moon." 

"  But  what  shall  we  do  for  a  silver  basin  ? " 
said  little  Daniel.  The  father  answered :  "  A 
pewter  dish  may  be  tried  if  it  were  made  very 
bright,  but  it  is  not  deep  enough ;  the  brass 
kettle  may  do  better." 

"  Nay ! "  said  Richard  Guy,  who  had  now 
begun  to  attend  with  some  interest,  "  the  shape 
of  the  kettle  is  not  suitable."  So  they  borrowed 
John  Wilson  the  barber's  brass  basin,  "for," 
said  Guy,  "  nobody  comes  to  be  shaved  by 
moonlight.  If  you  come  in  this  evening  at  six 
o'clock,  I  will  have  the  basin  as  bright  and 
shining  as  a  good  scouring  can  make  it.  The 
experiment  is  curious,  and  I  shall  like  to  see  it 
tried.  Where,  Daniel,  didst  thou  learn  it?" 
"I  read  it,"  replied  Daniel,  "in  'Sir  Kenelm 
Digby's  Discourses,'  and  he  says  it  never  fails." 

Accordingly  the  parties  met  at  the  appointed 
time.  Schoolmaster,  father,  and  son  retired  to 
a  place  of  observation  by  the  side  of  the  river. 
On  a  stone  sate  Daniel  the  elder,  holding  the 
basin  in  such  an  inclination  towards  the  moon 
that  there  should  be  no  shadow  in  it.  Guy 
directed  the  boy  where  to  place  himself,  and 


ALICE  GUY  109 

stood  looking  complacently  on  while  young 
Daniel  revolved  his  hands  one  within  the  other 
as  if  washing  them.  "I  feel  them  cold  and 
clammy,  father,"  said  the  boy.  "Ay,"  replied 
the  father,  "that's  the  cold  moisture  of  the 
moon  ! "  "  Ay,"  echoed  the  schoolmaster,  and 
nodded  his  head  in  confirmation.  The  experi- 
ment was  repeated  on  the  two  following  nights. 
In  spite  of  the  patient's  belief  that  the  warts 
would  waste  away  no  alteration  could  be  per- 
ceived in  them  at  a  fortnight's  end. 

Daniel  was  of  opinion  that  the  experiment 
had  failed  because  it  had  not  been  repeated 
sufficiently  often  or  continued  long  enough.  The 
schoolmaster  was  of  opinion  that  the  cause  was 
in  the  basin,  for  that  silver,  being  the  lunar 
metal,  would  by  affinity  assist  the  influential 
virtues  of  the  moonlight,  which,  finding  no  such 
afifinity  in  a  mixed  metal  of  baser  compounds, 
might  contrariwise  have  its  potential  qualities 
weakened  or  even  destroyed  when  received  in  a 
brazen  vessel  and  reflected  from  it.  "  Flossofer  " 
Daniel  assented  to  this  theory.  Nevertheless 
the  child  got  rid  of  his  excrescences  in  the 
course  of  three  or  four  months,  then  all  parties 
agreed  that  the  experiment  had  been  effectual, 


1 10        SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

and  Sir  Kenelm  Digby,  had  he  been  living, 
might  have  procured  the  solemn  attestation  of 
men  more  veracious  than  himself  that  moonshine 
was  an  infallible  cure  for  warts. 

From  this  time  the  two  "  Flossofers "  were 
friends.  Daniel  seldom  went  to  Ingleton  with- 
out looking  in  upon  Guy,  and  Guy,  on  his  part, 
would  walk  as  far  with  him  on  his  way  back  as 
the  tether  of  his  own  time  allowed. 

Young  Daniel  was  from  his  childhood  fond 
of  books  ;  his  uncle  William  used  to  say  he  was 
a  chip  of  the  old  block,  and  this  hereditary  dis- 
position was  regarded  with  much  satisfaction  by 
both  parents,  whilst  Guy  observed  his  progress 
with  as  much  delight  as  Daniel  himself ;  he  had 
from  the  first  conceived  a  liking  for  the  boy, 
both  because  of  the  right  principle  which  was 
evinced  by  the  manner  in  which  he  proposed 
the  question  concerning  stealing  the  beans,  and 
of  the  profound  gravity  with  which  he  behaved 
in  the  affair  of  the  moonshine.  The  boy  had 
indeed  a  kind  master,  as  well  as  a  happy  home, 
and  was  never  subject  to  brutal  treatment,  nor 
was  any  of  that  inhuman  injustice  ever  exercised 
upon  him  to  break  his  spirit,  "  for  which,"  says 
our  author,  "  it  is  to  be  hoped  Dean  Colet  has 


ALICE   GUY  III 

paid  in  purgatory ;  to  be  hoped,  I  say,  because 
if  there  be  no  purgatory  the  Dean  may  have 
gone  farther  and  fared  worse." 

The  intellectual  education  which  Daniel  re- 
ceived at  home  was  as  much  out  of  the  ordinary 
course  as  the  books  in  which  he  studied  at 
school.  "Robinson  Crusoe"  had  not  yet 
reached  Ingleton ;  the  only  book  within  his 
reach  was  "The  Pilgrim's  Progress,"  and  this 
he  read  at  first  without  a  suspicion  of  its  alle- 
gorical import. 

"  Oh  !  what  blockheads,"  exclaims  our  author, 
"  are  those  wise  persons  who  think  it  necessary 
that  a  child  should  comprehend  everything  it 
reads ! " 

"What,  sir,"  exclaims  a  lady,  who  is  bluer 
than  ever  one  of  her  naked  and  woad-stained 
ancestors  appeared  at  a  public  festival  in  full  dye. 
"  What,  sir,  do  you  tell  us  that  children  are  not 
to  be  made  to  understand  what  they  are  taught  ? 
Are  we  to  make  our  children  learn  things  by 
rote  like  parrots  ? "  "  Yes,  madam,  in  very 
many  cases." 

"  I  should  like,  sir,  to  be  instructed  why  ?  " 
"  What  I  say  is,  do  not  feed  them  with  meat  till 
they  have  teeth  to  masticate  it.  There  is  a  great 


112        SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

deal  which  they  ought  to  learn,  and  must  learn, 
before  they  can  or  ought  to  understand  it.  Let 
me  tell  you  a  story  which  the  Jesuit  Manuel  de 
Vergara  used  to  tell  of  himself.  When  he  was 
a  little  boy  he  asked  a  Dominican  friar  what 
was  the  meaning  of  the  seventh  commandment, 
for  he  said  he  could  not  tell  what  committing 
adultery  was.  The  friar,  not  knowing  how  to 
answer,  cast  a  perplexed  look  round  the  room, 
and,  thinking  he  had  found  a  safe  reply,  pointed 
to  a  kettle  on  the  fire,  and  said  the  command- 
ment meant  that  he  must  never  put  his  hand  in 
the  pot  while  it  was  boiling.  The  very  next 
day  a  loud  scream  alarmed  the  family,  and, 
behold,  there  was  little  Manuel  running  about 
the  room,  holding  up  his  scalded  finger,  and 
exclaiming,  '  Oh,  dear,  oh,  dear,  I've  committed 
adultery !  I've  committed  adultery  !  I've  com- 
mitted adultery  ! ' 

"  That,"  said  the  author,  "  though  I  say  it 
who  shouldn't,  is  a  good  story  well  applied." 

I  had  no  thought  of  introducing  Daniel  Dove 
and  young  Daniel  his  son,  excepting  so  far  as 
the  boy's  boyhood  had  some  connection  with 
Alice  Guy's  father,  Richard  Guy,  the  school- 
master; so  I  will  start  young  Daniel  on  his 


ALICE   GUY  113 

great  career,  by  stating  that  it  was  in  the  year  of 
our  Lord  1739,  having  then  entered  upon  his 
seventeenth  year,  accompanied  by  his  father,, 
he  first  entered  Doncaster,  and  was  there  de- 
livered up  by  that  excellent  man  to  the  care  of 
Peter  Hopkins.  Father  and  son  loved  each 
other  so  dearly  that  this,  which  was  the  first  day 
of  their  separation,  was  to  both  the  unhappiest 
of  their  lives. 

There  I,  too,  must  part  with  Daniel,  and  leave 
him  to  study  medicine  with  Dr.  Hopkins,  and 
so  become,  as  he  afterwards  did,  and  as  every- 
body knows,  "  The  Doctor  "  of  world-wide  fame. 
As  says  the  author,  "  My  Dove,  my  Daniel,  my 
Doctor  Daniel  Dove — everybody's  Doctor — yea, 
the  World's  Doctor,  the  World's  Doctor  Daniel 
Dove  ! " 

Richard  Guy  did  not  live  to  see  the  progress 
of  his  pupil,  he  died  a  few  months  after  the  lad 
had  been  placed  at  Doncaster,  and  the  delight 
of  Daniel's  first  return  to  his  home  was  over- 
clouded by  this  loss.  It  was  a  severe  one  too 
for  the  elder  Daniel,  who  lost  in  the  school- 
master "  his  only  intellectual  companion."  The 
person  whom  the  "  Doctor "  employed  in  col- 
lecting certain  books  for  him,  and  whom  Peter 
i 


114        SKETCHES  OF  BOOKSELLERS 

Hopkins  also  employed  in  the  same  way,  was 
Thomas  Gent,  the  son-in-law  of  the  school- 
master, for  whom,  as  aforesaid,  he  printed 
"  Flodden  Field." 


WILLIAM    BUTTON,    F.A.S.S.,   1723-1815. 
At  the  age  of  eighty. 


VII.   WILLIAM   HUTTON,   F.A.S.S., 
OF  BIRMINGHAM,  1723-1815 

T  was  a  fashion  among  many  of  the 
old  booksellers  to  write  and  pub- 
lish an  account  of  their  own  lives  ; 
if  they  had  not  done  so  there 
would  probably  have  been  very  little  known 
about  them  by  their  representatives  of  to-day. 

One  wonders  whether  there  was  really  a  com- 
pensating sale  for  these  quaint  and  curious 
"  Autobiographies,"  but  to  us  at  least  a  glimpse 
of  their  doings,  their  manner  of  life,  their  suc- 
cesses and  their  failures,  must,  I  think,  possess 
some  degree  of  interest. 

William  Hutton  wrote  the  story  of  his  life 
from  memory  when  he  was  seventy-five  years 


Il6       SKETCHES  OF  BOOKSELLERS 

old  :  it  forms  an  8vo.  volume  of  nearly  four  hun- 
dred pages.     The  title  is : 

THE 
LIFE   OF    WILLIAM    HUTTON,   F.A.S.S. 

INCLUDING 
A  PARTICULAR  ACCOUNT  OF 

THE   RIOTS   AT   BIRMINGHAM   IN   1791, 

TO  WHICH   IS   SUBJOINED 

THE  HISTORY  OF  HIS  FAMILY. 

WRITTEN   BY  HIMSELF 
AND   PUBLISHED   BY  HIS   DAUGHTER, 

CATHERINE   HUTTON. 


London  :  BALDWIN  &  CRADOCK  &  JOY, 

Birmingham  :  BEILBY  &  KNOTTS> 

1816. 

There  have  been  other  editions  published 
since,1  but  the  material  which  forms  this  sketch 
is  taken  from  this  edition  of  1816. 

Mutton's  early  career  was  not  unlike  that  of 
Thomas  Gent.  Both  were  cruelly  treated  in 
their  early  days,  and  both  were  runaway  appren- 

1  There  was  a  third  edition,  with  additional  notes  by 
his  daughter,  published  in  1841  in  "  Knight's  English 
Miscellanies,"  and  a  fourth  edition — "William  Hutton 
and  the  Hutton  Family  " — edited  by  Llewellynn  Jewitt, 
I2mo.,  was  published  in  1872  by  Warne  &  Co. 


WILLIAM   HUTTON  117 

tices — Gent,  with  is.  $d.  in  his  pocket  and  three 
loaves  in  his  wallet ;  Hutton  had  zs.  in  his 
pocket,  which  he  had  stolen  from  his  uncle. 

Hutton,  Gent,  and  Dunton  were  all  poets  in 
their  way  :  they  wrote  a  quantity  of  matter  in 
rhyme,  but  as  far  as  I  can  pretend  to  judge 
there  was  not  a  spark  of  the  "  divine  afflatus  " 
in  either  of  them.  Between  Dunton  and  Hutton 
there  was  this  difference  as  regards  their  birth ; 
Hutton's  mother  said  of  him  that  he  was  the 
largest  child  she  ever  had,  but  so  very  ordinary 
(a  soft  word  for  ugly)  she  was  afraid  she  should 
never  love  him.  Dunton,  on  the  other  hand, 
says  of  himself  that  he  was  so  diminutive  a  baby 
that  a  quart  pot  could  contain  the  whole  of  him, 
but  he  was  called  "  a  pretty  child."  As  a  baby, 
Dunton  swallowed  a  bullet,  which  was  all  but 
the  death  of  him  :  in  like  manner  Hutton  when 
he  was  about  the  same  age  managed  to  swallow 
a  large  hollow  brass  drop,  which  caused  the 
utmost  consternation  in  his  family,  but  eventu- 
ally the  brazen  bolus  "  did  no  injury." 

William  Hutton  was  born  Sept.  30,  1723,  at 
the  bottom  of  Full  Street,  Derby,  on  the  banks 
of  the  Derwent.  In  1725,  when  he  was  two 
years  old,  he  began  to  rely  wholly  on  his  own 


Il8        SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

memory  for  his  facts  :  thenceforward  he  tells 
the  story  of  his  life  year  by  year  very  circum- 
stantially. "  At  which,"  he  says,  "  those  who 
know  me  are  not  surprised.  There  is  not  a 
statement  either  false  or  coloured."  This  year 
he  was  nearly  drowned  by  tumbling  into  the 
Derwent,  just  as  Dunton  had  been  before  him. 

The  most  remarkable  event  in  1726  was  that 
he  tumbled  downstairs  from  top  to  bottom  and 
was  surprised  that  he  escaped  with  life.  In 
1727  he  was  put  into  breeches  and  was  taken  to 
visit  one  of  his  aunts  who  told  him  that  he  was 
"  an  ugly  lad,  like  his  father."  In  1728  he  was 
sent  to  school  to  Mr.  Thomas  West,  who  often 
beat  his  head  against  a  wall,  holding  it  by  the 
hair,  "but  never  could  beat  any  learning  into 
it." 

In  1730  his  play  days  came  to  an  end,  and  he 
was  placed  in  a  silk  mill.  He  had  now  to  rise 
at  five  every  morning  for  seven  years,  submit  to 
the  cane  whenever  convenient  to  the  master, 
and  be  the  constant  companion  of  the  most 
rude  and  vulgar  of  the  human  race. 

The  next  year,  while  still  working  at  the  mill, 
he  saw  the  wonderful  feats  performed  by  one 
Cadman,  in  flying  from  the  top  of  All  Saints 


WILLIAM   HUTTON  IIQ 

Steeple  to  the  bottom  of  St.  Michael's.  The 
only  other  event  was  that  his  father  broke  his 
walking  stick  while  thrashing  him  for  losing  a 
halfpenny.  In  1733  his  mother  died  and  he 
had  to  live  among  strangers.  At  one  time  he 
fasted  from  breakfast  one  day  till  noon  the  next, 
and  then  dined  on  hasty  pudding  ;  he  had  now 
completed  the  first  ten  years  of  his  life,  and  the 
following  year  he  was  engaged  in  the  manufac- 
ture of  a  gown  and  petticoat  for  Queen  Char- 
lotte ;  "  thus,"  says  he,  "  an  insignificant  animal, 
nearly  naked  himself,  assisted  in  cloathing  a 
queen." 

The  year  1737  was  the  last  of  his  servitude  at 
the  silk  mill.  He  had  served  seven  years  there, 
and  now  he  is  sent  to  his  uncle  at  Nottingham 
to  serve  another  seven  years  at  stocking  weaving ; 
his  uncle  was  a  seriously  religious  man,  but  his 
aunt  was  as  serious  a  hypocrite.  Now  that  food 
was  more  plentiful  she  begrudged  every  meal  he 
tasted. 

The  year  1740  ushered  in  the  greatest  frost 
ever  remembered  in  those  times,  it  lasted  from 
New  Year's  Day  to  March ; l  in  the  severest 

1  Gent  mentions  that  it  was  in  January,  1739,  that  the 
rivers  were  frozen  and  he  set  up  his  press  on  the  ice  at 


I2O   SKETCHES  OF  BOOKSELLERS 

part  of  it  Button's  wearing  apparel  was  a  thin 
waistcoat,  without  lining,  and  no  coat.  In  1741 
things  went  on  prosperously  for  a  time;  he 
made  shift  somehow  to  obtain  a  genteel  suit  of 
clothes  and  "  the  girls  eyed  him  with  some 
attention."  But  he  detested  the  frame,  and  an 
unhappy  quarrel  with  his  uncle  caused  him  to 
run  away,  blasted  his  views  of  happiness,  sunk 
him  in  the  dust,  and  placed  him  in  a  degraded 
position  from  which  he  did  not  recover  for  five 
years.  He  tells  the  story  of  this  terrible  episode 
in  what  he  calls  the  "  History  of  a  Week  " — from 
this  story  I  can  only  give  a  brief  summary  : 

His  uncle  had  promised  him  a  thrashing  at 
night  if  he  failed  to  perform  a  certain  piece  of 
work ;  he  did  fail  through  idleness — he  con- 
fessed that  he  could  have  done  it  if  he  would. 
"  Then,"  says  he,  "  I'll  make  you."  He  took  a 
birch  broom  handle  and  continued  his  blows  so 
heavily  and  so  long  that  the  poor  boy  "  thought 
he  would  have  broken  him  to  pieces."  He  was 
now  drawing  towards  eighteen,  and  had  become 
exceedingly  sensitive  to  female  criticism.  The 
news  of  his  thrashing  had  gone  abroad,  and  a 

York.  The  great  frost  of  1740  mentioned  by  Hutton  is 
well  known. 


WILLIAM   MUTTON  121 

female  acquaintance  passing  him  next  morning 
said,  sneeringly,  "  You  were  licked  last  night ! " 
a  remark  which  "  stung  him  to  the  quick."  He 
put  on  his  hat  as  if  going  to  meeting,  slipped 
upstairs  till  the  family  were  gone,  he  found  ten 
shillings  in  a  beaufet,  pocketed  two  shillings  and 
seemed  rather  to  pride  himself  on  his  honesty 
in  not  taking  the  whole. 

"  Figure  to  yourself,  says  he,  "  a  lad  of  seven- 
teen, not  elegantly  dressed,  near  five  feet  high, 
rather  Dutch  built,  with  a  long  narrow  bag  of 
brown  leather  that  would  hold  a  bushel  in  which 
was  neatly  packed  up  a  new  suit  of  clothes ;  also 
a  white  linen  bag  containing  a  sixpenny  loaf  of 
coarse  blencorn  bread,  a  bit  of  butter  wrapped 
in  the  leaves  of  an  old  copy-book  ;  a  new  Bible 
value  3-y.,  one  shirt,  a  pair  of  stockings,  a  sun 
dial,  my  best  wig  carefully  folded  and  laid  at  top 
that  it  might  not  be  crushed.  The  ends  of  the 
two  bags  being  slung  together  over  my  left  shoul- 
der, my  best  hat  hung  to  the  button  of  my  coat. 
I  had  only  two  shillings  in  my  pocket,  a  spacious 
world  before  me,  and  no  plan  of  operation. " 

He  cast  back  many  a  melancholy  look,  think- 
ing he  was  taking  an  everlasting  farewell  of  Not- 
tingham :  he  had  a  heavy  heart  and  a  heavy  load, 
and  there  was  nothing  light  about  him  but  the 
sun  in  the  heavens  and  the  money  in  his  pocket. 
By  ten  o'clock  he  arrived  at  Derby,  the  inhabi- 


122        SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

tants  had  gone  to  bed ;  he  passed  his  father's 
door,  which  was  open,  he  heard  his  father's  foot- 
steps not  three  yards  away,  and  he  retreated  with 
precipitation.  "  I  was  running,"  he  says,  "  from 
the  last  hand  that  could  have  saved  me  !  " 

He  took  up  his  abode  in  an  adjoining  field  on 
the  cold  grass  with  the  sky  overhead  and  the  bags 
by  his  side.  He  rose  at  four,  July  1 3th,  starved, 
sore,  and  started  for  Burton,  where  he  arrived 
the  same  morning,  having  travelled  twenty-eight 
miles  and  spent  nothing.  "  I  was  an  economist," 
says  he,  "from  my  cradle,  and  the  character  never 
forsook  me."  He  took  a  view  of  the  town  and 
spent  one  penny.  The  same  evening  he  arrived 
near  Lichfield  and  prepared  to  lodge  in  a  barn, 
but  finding  it  closed  he  left  his  things  and  went 
on  to  another  barn  a  stone's  throw  off  which  he 
found  open,  and  returned  after  an  absence  of 
only  a  few  minutes — what  was  his  surprise  !  his 
bags  had  disappeared.  He  shouted,  he  roared 
after  the  rascal,  but,  says  he,  "I  might  have  been 
silent,  for  thieves  seldom  come  at  a  call."  He  ran 
raving  about  the  road,  told  his  loss  to  all  he  met, 
found  pity  from  all,  but  redress  from  none !  At 
eleven  o'clock  at  night  he  found  himself  in  the 
open  street,  "  left  to  tell  his  mournful  tale  to  the 


WILLIAM   HUTTON  123 

silent  night."  "  It  is  not  easy,"  he  writes,  "  to 
place  a  human  being  in  a  more  distressed  situ- 
ation. My  finances  were  nothing,  a  stranger  to 
the  world  and  the  world  to  me ;  no  employ,  no 
food  to  eat  or  place  to  rest,  I  sought  repose  in 
the  street  upon  a  butcher's  block." 

Next  day  he  found  himself  at  Walsall.  There 
were  no  frames  there.  His  feet  were  sorely 
blistered ;  he  begged  some  fat  from  a  butcher  to 
rub  on  them,  and  found  immediate  relief,  and 
then  set  off  for  Birmingham.  There  were  three 
stocking-weavers  there.  One  was  an  old  Quaker 
named  Evans,  whom  he  asked  to  employ  him. 
His  reply  was  :  "  'You  are  a  run-away  apprentice; 
go  about  your  business.'  I  retreated,  sincerely 
wishing  I  had  business  to  go  about."  He  next 
waited  upon  Holmes  in  Dale  End,  who  gave  him 
a  penny  to  get  rid  of  him.  The  next  was  Francis 
Grace,  whose  niece  he  married  many  years  after- 
wards ;  but  on  this  visit  he  was  so  closely  ques- 
tioned that  he  told  three  or  four  lies  to  patch  up 
a  lame  tale,  and  he  left  the  shop  with  the  severe 
reflection  that  his  lying  brought  him  no  advant- 
age, for  he  was  dismissed  without  any  assistance. 

"  It  was  now  about  seven  in  the  evening,  July 
1 4th,  1741,  I  sat  to  rest  upon  the  north  side  of 


124        SKETCHES  OF   BOOKSELLERS 

the  old  cross — the  poorest  of  all  the  poor  belong- 
ing to  that  great  parish,  of  which  twenty-seven 
years  after  I  should  be  the  overseer." 

Two  men  in  aprons  noticed  his  forlorn  condi- 
tion, took  him  to  the  Bell  Inn,  gave  him  bread, 
cheese,  and  beer,  and  found  him  a  lodging,  where 
he  slept  for  three-halfpence.  He  walked  on  next 
day  to  Coventry,  then  to  Nuneaton  and  Hinckley. 
Everywhere  the  word  'Prentice  rang  in  his  ears  ; 
they  called  him  a  boy  and  refused  to  employ  him. 
One  man  named  Millward  did  employ  him  one 
afternoon,  when  he  earned  twopence^  and  his  em- 
ployer told  him  he  would  give  him  a  bed  if  he 
would  promise  to  return  to  his  uncle  in  the  morn- 
ing. On  the  1 8th  he  turned  homewards  woefully; 
he  reached  Ashby-de-la-Zouch  with  eightpence 
left  out  of  his  2S.  "  Extreme  frugality,"  he  re- 
peats, "  composes  a  part  of  my  character." 

On  the  i  gth  he  reached  home ;  his  father 
gladly  received  him  and  dropped  tears  for  his 
misfortunes. 

This  unhappy  ramble  damped  his  rising  spirit ; 
he  did  not  recover  his  balance  for  two  years ;  it 
also  ruined  him  in  point  of  dress,  for  he  was  not 
able  to  reassume  his  former  appearance  for  five 
years.  "  It  ran  me  in  debt,"  he  says,  "  out  of 


WILLIAM   HUTTON  125 

which  I  have  never  been  to  this  day,  November 
21,  1779." 

During  the  next  two  or  three  years  nothing 
happened  except  that  he  became  for  a  time  in- 
fatuated with  music,1  it  became  his  study  and 
delight.  He  had  purchased  a  bell-harp  whose 
sounds  he  thought  seraphic,  but  he  had  no  books 
and  no  instruction,  nor  the  least  hint  as  to  putting 
his  instrument  in  tune.  For  six  months  he  made 
every  effort  to  get  a  tune  out  of  it ;  he  succeeded 
at  last.  Then  he  borrowed  a  dulcimer  and  soon 
learned  to  play  on  it.  He  made  one  like  it  out 
of  the  boards  of  an  old  trunk,  his  only  tools  being 
a  pocket  knife  and  a  fork  with  one  limb — with 
this  he  discoursed  such  lovely  music  that  a  young 
baker's  apprentice  offered  him  i6s.  for  it,  which 
he  accepted,  and  bought  a  coat  with  the  money ; 
his  friend  practised  vigorously  for  some  time  till 
he  could  play  part  of  "  Over  the  Hills  and  Far 
Away,"  and  then  grew  tired  of  it.  The  next  time 
he  saw  him  he  asked  how  he  was  progressing. 
"  O  damn  the  music,  I  couldn't  make  it  do.  I 
took  a  broomstick  and  whacked  the  strings  and 
burned  the  body  in  the  oven." 

1  Curiously  enough,  it  was  much  about  this  time  that 
Thomas  Gent,  then  in  business  at  York,  spent  a  year  in 
studying  music.  See  Sketch  No.  V.,  ante. 


126       SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

At  Christmas  1 744  his  servitude  expired :  he 
had  served  two  seven  years  to  two  trades,  by 
neither  of  which  he  could  subsist.  He  con- 
tinued as  a  journeyman  with  his  uncle.  In  1746 
his  inclination  for  books  began  to  expand,  but 
money  to  buy  them  was  wanting.  His  first  pur- 
chase was  three  volumes  of  the  "  Gentleman's 
Magazine,"  1742-4.  He  could  not  afford  to  pay 
for  binding,  so  he  cobbled  them  together  as  best 
he  could.  He  could  buy  only  shabby  books,  and 
in  this  way  he  became  acquainted  with  "a  shabby 
bookseller,"  who  was  also  a  binder,  and  watched 
him  at  work  :  he  never  saw  him  perform  one  act 
but  he  could  do  it  himself,  so  strong  was  his  de- 
sire to  acquire  the  art  of  bookbinding.  With  the 
assistance  of  this  bookseller,  he  soon  became  a 
fair  adept  in  binding.  The  first  work  work  he 
bound  was  Shakespeare's  "Venus  and  Adonis"; 
so  well  was  it  done  that  the  bookseller  was  sur- 
prised. Charles  Knight  says  :  "  Ah  !  William 
Hutton,  if  you  had  known  the  value  of  those 
twenty-seven  leaves  !  All  the  separate  editions 
of  '  Venus  and  Adonis '  are  of  great  rarity."  He 
then  bought  from  the  same  man,  for  2S.,  an  old 
worn-out  press  which  had  been  destined  for  the 
fire.  He  studied  its  construction,  and,  with  the 


WILLIAM   HUTTON  I2/ 

aid  of  a  hammer  and  a  pin,  he  perfectly  cured  the 
machine.  "  This,"  he  says,  "  proved  for  forty- 
two  years  my  best  binding-press."  Now  he  bought 
a  tolerably  genteel  suit  of  clothes  and  was  so 
careful  of  it  that  it  continued  his  best  for  five 
years.  It  was  in  that  year,  1747,  that  his  good 
uncle  died. 

In  1747  the  desire  and  pride  of  his  life  was  to 
wear  a  watch  ;  he  bought  a  silver  one  for  35^. ; 
it  went  ill,  he  gave  it  and  a  guinea  for  another 
one,  which  was  quite  as  bad.  Then  he  bought 
another  brass  one  which  he  soon  sold  for  $s. 
which  he  gave  away  in  charity ;  after  that  he 
went  without  a  watch  for  thirty  years.  This  year 
he  began  to  "  drop  into  rhime." 

In  1749  he  took  to  bookbinding  as  his  chief 
business,  but  he  had  no  tools,  and  they  were 
only  to  be  got  in  London,  so  to  London  he  de- 
cided to  go,  but  he  had  no  money;  his  good 
sister  raised  three  guineas  and  stitched  them  in 
his  collar,  being  certain  that  he  would  be  robbed. 
She  also  put  1 1 s.  in  his  pocket.  With  this  slen- 
der provision  he  started  on  Monday,  April  8th. 
After  a  walk  of  ten  miles  he  became  so  footsore 
that  he  could  only  walk  with  difficulty.  His  first 
stop  was  Leicester,  where  he  left  a  pocket-knife, 


128   SKETCHES  OF  BOOKSELLERS 

the  loss  of  which  he  deplored  because  it  was  the 
gift  of  a  friend  and  so  worth  to  him  ten  times  its 
money  value.  His  next  stop  was  at  Brixworth, 
having  walked  fifty-one  miles  and  spent  fivepence. 
The  following  day  he  reached  Dunstable,  and  on 
the  third  day,  weary  and  worn  out,  he  arrived  at 
"  The  Horns  "  in  Smithfield.  He  called  for  a 
chop  and  porter,  but  was  so  jaded  that  he  could 
scarcely  touch  it.  This  was  the  only  meal  he 
tasted  under  a  roof  during  the  whole  time  of  his 
stay  in  London.  The  next  morning  he  break- 
fasted on  furmity  at  a  wheel-barrow ;  sometimes 
he  had  a  halfpenny  worth  of  soup  and  another  of 
bread,  at  other  times  bread  and  cheese.  "  I  ate 
to  live,"  he  says. 

"  If  a  man  goes  to  receive  money  it  may  take 
him  a  long  time  to  transact  business  ;  if  to  pay 
money  it  will  take  him  less,  and  if  he  has  but 
little  to  pay  it  will  take  him  still  less.  My  errand 
fell  under  the  third  class.  I  only  wanted  three 
alphabets  of  letters,  a  set  of  figures  and  some  orna- 
mental tools  for  gilding  books  with  leather  and 
boards  for  binding." 

He  soon  obtained  these  things,  and  then  he 
determined  to  see  all  the  sights  of  London  that 
were  to  be  seen  without  pay ;  but  he  did  spend 
one  penny  to  see  Bedlam.  He  was  in  London 


WILLIAM   HUTTON  129 

three  days:  he  had  walked  125  miles  to  London, 
and  was  on  his  feet  all  the  time  he  was  there. 
On  Saturday  evening,  April  i3th,  he  set  out 
for  Nottingham,  having  four  shillings  left  out 
of  the  eleven  shillings  he  had  started  with. 
On  the  1 6th  he  reached  Leicester — the  land- 
lady had  carefully  preserved  the  precious  knife. 
He  reached  Nottingham  the  same  evening, 
having  walked  forty  miles.  He  had  been 
away  nine  days — three  in  going,  which  cost 
35-.  &£.,  three  in  London,  which  cost  the  same, 
and  three  in  returning,  which  cost  a  trifle  less. 
He  brought  back  ^d.  out  of  the  eleven  shillings 
he  started  with.  Surely  a  youth  who  could  walk 
250  miles  in  six  days  (that  is  an  average  of  nearly 
43  miles  a  day)  and  spend  three  days  in  perambu- 
lating London  at  a  total  cost  of  ten  shillings  and 
eightpence  was  no  ordinary  adventurer.  He  had 
an  admirable  capacity  for  telling  everything  he 
had  seen,  so  this  singular  journey  "furnished 
vast  matter  for  detail  among  his  friends." 

It  was  now  time  to  look  out  for  a  future  place 
of  residence.  His  plan  was  to  fix  upon  some 
market  town  within  a  stage  of  Nottingham  and 
open  a  shop  there  on  market  days.  He  fixed  on 
Southwell  as  his  "  first  step  to  elevation."  It  was 
K 


130        SKETCHES  OF  BOOKSELLERS 

fourteen  miles  away  and  the  town  as  despicable 
as  the  road  to  it.  He  took  a  shop  there  at  the 
rate  of  2os.  a  year,  sent  a  few  boards  for  shelves, 
a  few  tools,  and  about  2  cwt.  of  trash  worth  per- 
haps a  year's  rent  of  the  shop ;  he  was  his  own 
joiner,  put  up  the  shelves,  and  in  one  day  "  be- 
came the  most  eminent  bookseller  in  the  place." 

During  that  rainy  winter  he  set  out  at  five 
every  Saturday  morning,  carried  a  bundle  of 
books  sometimes  thirty  pounds  in  weight,  opened 
shop  at  ten,  starved  in  it  all  day  upon  bread, 
cheese,  and  half  a  pint  of  ale,  took  from  one  to 
six  shillings,  shut  up  at  four  and  trudged  back, 
arriving  at  Nottingham  at  nine,  where  a  mess  of 
milk  and  porridge  always  awaited  him.  Nothing 
short  of  surprising  resolution  could  have  carried 
him  through  such  fruitless  toil  as  this. 

In  the  month  of  February,  1750,  he  took  a 
journey  to  Birmingham  to  pass  a  judgment  on 
the  probability  of  future  success  there.  He  found 
there  "three  eminent  booksellers,  Aris,  Warren,1 
and  Wollaston,"  and  as  he  considered  the  town 
crowded  with  inhabitants  he  thought  he  might 

1  Mr.  Knight  mentions  this  Mr.  Warren  as  having 
been  associated  with  the  early  literary  efforts  of  Samuel 
Johnson. 


WILLIAM   HUTTON  1$! 

"  mingle  in  that  crowd  unnoticed  by  the  three 
great  men,  for  an  ant  is  not  worth  destroying." 

On  his  return  he  fell  into  trouble  through  losing 
himself  in  Charnwood  Forest,  but  eventually  got 
back  to  Nottingham.  He  then  gave  notice  to 
quit  Southwell  and  "  prepared  for  a  total  change 
of  life."  On  April  loth  he  entered  Birmingham 
for  the  third  time  to  try  if  he  could  be  accom- 
modated with  a  small  shop,  and  the  next  day 
agreed  with  Mrs.  Dix  .for  the  lesser  half  of  her 
shop,  No.  6  Bull  Street,  at  one  shilling  a  week, 
and  returned  to  Nottingham. 

On  May  i3th  a  Mr.  Rudsdall,  a  Dissenting 
minister  of  Gainsborough,  let  him  have  the  re- 
fuse of  his  library  at  his  own  price.  Mr.  Ruds- 
dall gave  him  a  corn-chest  in  which  the  books, 
about  2  cwt.,  were  packed,  and  for  payment  drew 
out  the  following  note  : 

"  I  promise  to  pay  to  Ambrose  Rudsdall  one 
pound  seven  shillings  when  I  am  able."  Mr. 
Rudsdall  added :  "You  need  never  pay  this  note 
if  you  only  say  you  are  not  able."  The  books 
made  a  better  show  and  were  more  valuable  than 
all  he  possessed  besides.  On  May  23rd,  he  had 
a  hard  parting  from  his  friends  and  arrived  at 
Birmingham  on  the  25th. 


132        SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

In  a  few  weeks  he  was  able  to  tell  his  brother 
who  came  to  see  him  that  his  trade  supported 
him.  Five  shillings  a  week  covered  every  expense 
as  food,  rent,  lodging,  washing.  "  Thus,"  he 
says,  "  a  year  rolled  round,  when  a  few  young 
men  of  elevated  character  and  sense  took  notice 
of  me,  I  had  saved  £20,  and  was  become  more 
reconciled  to  my  situation."  In  this  beginning 
of  his  prosperity  something  happened  which 
'  threatened  totally  to  eclipse  the  small  prospect 
before  me."  The  overseers,  fearing  that  he  may 
become  chargeable  to  the  parish,  ordered  him  to 
procure  a  certificate  or  they  would  remove  him. 
He  wrote  to  his  father  to  get  one,  and  the  reply 
came,  "  that  All  Saints  in  Derby  never  granted 
certificates."  He  was  hunted  by  this  ill  nature 
for  two  years.  He  offered  to  pay  the  levies,  which 
they  refused.  A  new  overseer,  however,  from 
whom  he  had  bought  two  suits  of  clothes  for 
;£io,  consented  to  take  them. 

The  next  year,  1751,  he  took  the  house  ad- 
joining that  of  Mr.  Grace,  the  hosier,  who  had 
refused  to  employ  him  when  he  applied  for  work 
during  his  runaway  week,  and  to  whom  he  had 
"  told  several  lies,  and  without  the  least  advant- 
age." He  was  frightened  at  the  rent,  which  was 


WILLIAM   HUTTON  133 

-£8  a  year.  Here  he  pursued  business  in  a  more 
elevated  style,  and  with  more  success.  His  new 
clothes  introduced  him  to  new  acquaintances ; 
it  was  at  this  time  that  he  became  acquainted  with 
Mr.  William  Ryland,  "  one  of  the  worthiest  of 
men,"  he  writes,  "  with  whom  I  contracted  a  close 
and  intimate  friendship  which  has  continued 
forty-six  years,  and  is  only  to  be  broken  by 
death." 

In  1752  he  had  a  smiling  trade  to  which  he 
closely  attended.  He  hired  out  books,  and  "  the 
fair  sex  did  not  neglect  the  shop."  This  hiring 
out  of  books  was  really  the  beginning  of  a  Circu 
lating  Library,  the  first  that  had  ever  been  es- 
tablished out  of  London.1  As  capital  increased 
he  opened  a  shop  on  market  days  at  Bromsgrove, 
but  found  it  did  not  pay  and  soon  dropped  it. 
He  also  took  a  female  servant  who  was  still  less 
profitable,  for  during  his  absence  she  sold  his 
books  for  what  they  would  fetch,  left  the  shop, 
"and  got  drunk  with  the  money."  This  year 
his  neighbour  Mr.  Grace,  being  a  widowet 

1  The  first  Circulating  Library  in  London  was  estab- 
lished in  the  Strand  by  a  bookseller  of  the  name  of  Bathoe 
in  1740.  "  Cunningham's  Handbook  of  London."  The 
first  Circulating  Library  in  Cambridge  was  established  by 
Robert  Watts  in  1745. 


134   SKETCHES  OF  BOOKSELLERS 

took  his  niece,  Miss  Sarah  Cock,  to  keep  his 
house. 

The  following  year  Mr.  Hutton  cultivated  ac- 
quaintance with  Miss  Cock,  and  in  1755,  June 
23rd,  he  says  :  "  I  awoke  before  seven  and  rumi- 
nating on  the  first  object  of  my  life  I  thought  to 
myself,  '  What  am  I  waiting  for  ?  I  have  nothing 
to  expect,  no  end  to  answer  by  delay ;  that  which 
must  be  done  may  as  well  be  done  now.  I  will 
rise  and  tell  my  love  she  must  be  no  longer 
single.'  "  Mr.  Grace  interposed  no  obstacle,  Miss 
Cock  was  "willin,"  so  the  marriage  ceremony 
took  place  at  St.  Philip's  Church.  "  Thus,"  says 
he,  "  I  experienced  another  important  change, 
and  one  I  never  wished  to  unchange.  ...  I 
found  in  my  wife  more  than  ever  I  expected  to 
find  in  woman." 

In  1756  his  wife  brought  him  a  little  daughter, 
who  proved  to  be  the  pleasure  of  his  life.  And 
now  occurred  an  event  which  proved  an  advan- 
tageous change  in  his  career.  Mr.  Robert  Bage, 
a  paper-maker,  proposed  that  he  should  sell  paper 
for  him  either  on  commission  or  on  his  own  ac- 
count. He  found  that  he  could  spare  about 
£200,  so  he  chose  to  buy.  He  appropriated  a 
room  and  hung  out  a  sign,  "  The  Paper  Ware- 


WILLIAM    HUTTON  135 

house."  "  From  this  small  hint,"  says  he,  "  I 
followed  the  stroke  for  forty  years,  and  acquired 
an  ample  fortune." 

Mr.  Grace  died  in  1757  and  left  him  his  re- 
siduary legatee,  and  his  wife  brought  him  a  son. 
He  now  occupied  Mr.  Grace's  house,  and  kept 
his  own  as  a  warehouse. 

Prosperous  times  were  now  opening  up  for 
him,  and  in  July,  1758,  his  wife  presented  him 
with  another  son.  I  quote  the  following  passage 
in  full  because  it  contains  words  of  wisdom 
applicable  to  all  times  and  seasons  : 

"I  perceived  more  profit  would  arise  from 
the  new  trade  than  the  old;  that  blank  paper 
would  speak  in  fairer  language  than  printed ; 
that  one  could  only  furnish  the  head,  but  the  other 
would  furnish  the  pocket ;  and  that  the  fat  kine 
would  in  time  devour  the  lean.  .  .  .  Few  men 
can  bear  prosperity.  It  requires  a  considerable 
share  of  knowledge  to  know  when  we  are  well ; 
for  it  often  happens  that  he  who  is  well,  in 
attempting  to  be  better,  becomes  worse." 

He  concluded  that,  as  there  was  a  profit  to 
the  seller  of  paper,  there  must  be  to  the  maker, 
and  so  on  this  erroneous  principle  he  longed  for 
a  paper-mill,  and  by  degrees  he  became,  as  he 
says,  "mill  mad."  In  1759,  on  taking  stock,  he 
had  saved  in  the  past  year  ^137,  exclusive  of  all 


136   SKETCHES  OF  BOOKSELLERS 

expenses.  By  this  time  his  property,  exclusive  of 
his  furniture,  was  ^777.  But  1760  proved  on 
the  whole  a  melancholy  year.  His  wife  was 
afflicted  with  jaundice,  one  of  his  sons  died,  then 
he  himself  was  brought  low  with  the  jaundice, 
and  was  for  a  long  time  between  life  and 
death. 

The  next  year  he  was  worried  about  'fas paper- 
mill.  He  had  purchased  two  acres  of  waste 
land  at  Handsworth,  and  there  he  began  to 
build ;  his  workmen  saw  his  ignorance,  and 
"bit  me  as  they  pleased."  They  said,  and 
acted  up  to  the  principle :  "  Let  us  fleece 
Hutton ;  he  has  money."  He  discharged  them 
all,  let  the  work  stand,  and  left  himself  some 
rest.  He  was  persuaded  to  convert  what  was 
never  finished  as  a  paper-mill  into  a  corn-mill. 
He  found  that,  as  a  miller,  he  was  cheated  on 
all  sides.  He  sold  it  for  eighty  guineas,  and 
found  he  had  lost  in  cash  ^£229.  He  was  so 
provoked  with  his  folly  that  he  followed  up 
his  business  with  redoubled  spirit,  and  soon  he 
prospered ;  he  had  no  rival,  and,  as  he  says,  he 
struck  the  nail  that  would  drive.  "  I  never 
could  bear,"  says  he,  "  the  thought  of  living  to 
the  extent  of  my  income;  I  never  omitted  to 


WILLIAM    HUTTON  137 

take  stock  or  regulate  my  annual  expenses  so  as 
to  meet  casualties  and  misfortunes." 

So  far  I  have  followed  Button's  progress 
almost  year  by  year,  but  now  that  we  find  him 
fairly  launched  in  a  prosperous  business  it  is 
unnecessary  to  do  more  than  glance  at  him 
now  and  then  till  he  reaches  the  final  goal, 
and  that  is  a  long  way  ahead,  for  we  have 
now  accompanied  him  down  to  the  year  1763, 
when  he  was  only  about  forty,  and  he  lived  a 
vigorous  life  till  he  was  ninety-two. 

No  sooner  did  he  find  himself  on  the  high 
road  to  fortune  by  perseverance  in  his  own  trade, 
than  he  must  needs  become  discontented :  he 
had  always  a  fondness  for  land,  and  wished  to 
call  some  his  own.  "This  ardent  desire  for 
dirt,"  says  he,  "never  forsook  me."  In  the 
course  of  the  next  few  years  he  bought  and  sold 
several  small  estates ;  sometimes  he  made  large 
profits  by  these  transactions,  and  not  unfre- 
quently  considerable  losses. 

In  1768  he  was  chosen  overseer  of  the  parish 
of  Birmingham,  and  thought  himself  "  elevated 
above  his  ancestors,"  for  "  none  of  them  within 
the  reach  of  tradition  had  equalled  it ;  they  had 
rather  been  the  poor  than  the  overseers  of  the 


138        SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

poor."     His  property  by  this  time  had  reached 
^2,000. 

As  an  overseer  he  soon  became  very  popular, 
especially  among  his  brethren  at  the  Castle — for 
by  active  conduct  he  did  not  only  his  own  duty, 
but  a  considerable  part  of  theirs.  He  also  ac- 
quired an  amiable  character  among  the  depen- 
dent class,  and  his  successor  told  him  that  he 
was  "  the  favourite  of  all  the  old  women." 

In  1769  he  bought  land  at  Bennett's  Hill, 
near  Washwood  Heath,  and  there  he  built  a 
residence  for  himself;  he  quitted  the  office  of 
overseer,  but  his  friend,  William  Ryland,  dread- 
ing the  office,  gave  him  twenty  guineas  to  serve 
for  him,  and  so  he  had  another  year  of  the 
office,  but  he  did  not  find  this  second  year  so 
pleasant  as  the  first,  so  he  took  "  the  tail  end  of 
an  overseer  no  more." 

Ambition  and  the  idea  of  being  useful  now 
spurred  him  on  to  enter  public  life.  In  the 
year  1773  he  was  chosen  a  Commissioner  of 
the  Lamp  and  Street  Act,  a  position  which  he 
relished.  His  plan  was  to  execute  the  Act  with 
firmness,  but  with  mildness,  but  he  soon  found 
there  were  clashing  interests  among  the  Com- 
missioners :  some  wished  to  retain  their  own 


WILLIAM   HUTTON  139 

nuisances  ;  others  to  protect  those  of  their 
friends — a  rich  man  was  also  favoured  beyond 
a  poor  one.  He  was  blamed  for  some  removals 
because  he  was  a  speaker,  an  advocate  for  im- 
partial reform,  and  was  not  supported  by  his 
brother  Commissioners ;  he  lost  some  friends, 
and  so  declined  attendance. 

The  year  1779  was  one  of  a  series  of  misfor- 
tunes :  the  carpenter  who  was  building  his 
house  cheated  him  heavily;  a  paper-maker 
compelled  him  to  pay  ^30  for  paper  never 
received;  many  customers  failed  in  his  debt; 
one  of  his  tenants  broke,  by  which  he  lost 
several  hundred  pounds ;  the  indisposition  of 
his  wife  began  which  lasted  seventeen  years  ; 
his  daughter  was  taken  ill  of  a  nervous  com- 
plaint ;  he  had  an  abscess  in  his  throat,  and  at 
length  he  broke  out  in  boils. 

In  1 780  he  says  he  was  distressed  in  the  midst 
of  plenty.  For  nine  months  he  was  mostly  em- 
ployed in  writing  the  "  History  of  Birmingham." 
On  showing  it  to  Dr.  Withering  he  pronounced 
it  "  the  best  topographical  history  he  had  ever 
seen."  In  the  next  year  a  new  duty  was  put  on 
paper,  consequently  an  advance  in  price. 

In  1782  he  writes  : 


140       SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

"  A  man  may  live  half  a  century  and  not  be 
acquainted  with  his  own  character.  I  did  not 
know  I  was  an  antiquary  till  the  world  informed 
me,  from  having  read  my  history ;  but  when 
told  I  could  see  it  myself.  The  Antiquarian 
Society  of  Edinburgh  chose  me  a  member,  and 
sent  me  an  authority  to  splice  to  my  name 
F.A.S.S." 

In  1784  he  lost  his  mother  as  the  age  of  87, 
and  in  1786  he  lost  his  sister,  "a  woman  of  an 
extraordinary  character,  and  as  amiable  as  ex- 
traordinary. Her  age  was  67." 

In  1787,  being  Master  of  the  Rules  in  the 
Court  of  Requests,  he  wrote  a  full  history  of  the 
process  in  octavo,  being  his  third  publication. 
This  year  he  took  his  wife  to  Aberystwith,  and 
on  his  return  he  walked  from  Aberystwith  to 
Shrewsbury  with  his  coat  on  his  arm  in  two 
days  and  a  half,  the  weather  being  extremely 
hot  and  the  roads  dusty  ;  this  laid  him  up  for  a 
month. 

We  now  reach  1791;  the  year  began  pros- 
perously, but  terminated  in  disaster.  He 
writes : 

"  My  family  loved  me  :  were  in  harmony.  I 
enjoyed  the  amusements  of  the  pen,  the  court, 
and  had  no  pressure  on  the  mind,  but  the  de- 
clining health  of  her  I  loved.  But  a  calamity 


WILLIAM   HUTTON  14! 

awaited  me  I  little  suspected.  The  Riots  in 
1791,  which  hurt  my  fortune,  destroyed  my 
peace,  nearly  overwhelmed  me  and  my  family, 
and  not  only  deprived  us  of  every  means  of 
restoring  to  health  the  best  of  women,  but 
shortened  her  days.  I  wrote  a  history  of  that 
most  savage  event  at  the  time,  with  a  view  to 
publication,  but  my  family  would  not  suffer  it  to 
see  the  light.  I  shall  now  transcribe  with  exact- 
ness the  MS.  copy." 

And  now  follows  "  A  Narrative  of  the  Riots 
in  Birmingham,  July  14,  1791,  particularly  as 
they  affected  the  author." 

This  narrative  of  the  Riots  occupies  sixty-one 
pages  of  the  book,  and  presents  an  interesting 
account  of  the  Riots  and  the  cause  of  ;them. 
One  of  the  causes  thereof  seems  to  have  arisen 
from  the  members  of  a  certain  public  library 
desiring  to  introduce  Dr.  Priestley's  polemical 
works,  to  which  the  clergy  were  averse;  this 
produced  two  parties,  and  its  natural  con- 
sequence, animosity  in  both.  From  this  small 
beginning  arose  a  general  proscription  of  the 
Dissenters.  A  furious  mob  arose,  calling  itself 
champion  of  Church  and  King,  which,  as 
Hutton  remarks,  was  composed  of  people 
"who  would  have  sold  their  King  for  a  jug 
of  ale,  and  demolished  the  Church  for  a  bottle 


142   SKETCHES  OF  BOOKSELLERS 

of  gin."  Hutton  was  always  of  a  peace-loving 
nature,  and  said  that  he  was  "a  firm  friend  to 
our  present  Establishment,  notwithstanding  her 
blemishes."  He  had  taken  no  part  in  these 
religious  disputes,  but  he  was  known  as  a  Dis- 
senter and  a  friend  of  Priestley,  and  not  a  few 
of  the  rioters  remembered  him  as  Chairman  of 
the  Court  of  Requests  who  fined  them  or  other- 
wise punished  them  for  their  misdeeds.  They 
now  seized  the  opportunity  of  revenging  them- 
selves. They  attacked  his  business  house  in 
the  High  Street,  threw  his  furniture  and  exten- 
sive stock  into  the  street,  and  reduced  the  house 
to  a  skeleton.  And,  not  satisfied  with  this  dia- 
bolical deed,  they  went  next  day  to  his  country 
home  at  Bennett's  Hill,  and  burnt  down  the 
house  and  all  its  contents.  What  was  not  con- 
sumed in  the  fire  was  carried  off  by  the  rioters. 

"  The  fatal  i4th  of  July  was  by  far  the  most 
important  era  of  my  life.  ...  A  black  cloud 
was  raised  over  my  head  which  the  sun  of  pros- 
perity can  never  disperse.  I  entered  Birmingham 
July  1 4th,  1741,  as  a  runaway  apprentice,  with- 
out money,  friend,  or  home.  And  that  day  fifty 
years  began  those  outrages  which  drove  me  from 
it,  and  left  me  in  a  more  deplorable  state  of  mind 
than  at  the  former  period." 


WILLIAM    HUTTON  143 

Many  of  his  friends,  Churchmen  as  well  as 
Dissenters,  offered  him  the  use  of  their  houses 
after  the  riots.  It  does  not  appear,  however, 
that  this  cruel  destruction  of  his  property  brought 
such  absolute  ruin  upon  him  as  he  has  described. 
His  actual  claim  for  loss  and  damages  amounted 
to  ^8,243,  and  of  this  he  eventually  received 
^£5,390.  Besides  he  was  in  possession  of  a  con- 
siderable amount  of  landed  property. 

In  1795  ne  purchased  an  estate  in  Hereford- 
shire, and  in  1796,  January  23rd,  his  beloved 
wife  died.  Her  loss  was  a  very  real  and  sore 
trial  to  him,  but  for  this  loss  his  later  days  would 
have  been  ideally  happy.  He  now  transferred 
his  business  to  his  son,  and  during  the  next  few 
years  he  occupied  his  time  partly  in  writing  poems 
and  in  travelling  about  with  his  daughter.  He 
concluded  the  writing  of  the  story  of  his  own 
life  in  May  1798,  when  he  was  seventy-five,  and 
then  he  began  to  write  the  history  of  his  family. 
He  performed  most  of  his  journeys  afoot.  One 
day  he  walked  forty-six  miles,  the  next  ten  miles 
and  forty-two  the  third — and  then  he  fell  lame, 
having  injured  the  tendon  of  Achilles — and  so 
"  limped  out  of  this  year  and  limped  into  the 
next."  In  1800  he  lost  his  elder  brother  aged 


144    SKETCHES  OF  BOOKSELLERS 

seventy-eight,   and    1801    his    brother    Samuel 
died  at  the  age  of  sixty-seven. 

"  My  years  run  round  like  a  boy  who  beats 
his  hoop  round  a  circle,  and  with  nearly  the  same 
effect,  that  of  a  little  exercise.  I  rise  at  six  in 
summer  and  seven  in  winter — march  to  Birming- 
ham, two  and  a  half  miles,  where  my  son  receives 
me  with  open  arms.  I  return  at  four  or  five  when 
my  daughter  receives  me  with  a  smile.  I  then 
amuse  myself  with  reading,  conversation,  or  study, 
without  any  pressure  on  my  mind,  except  the 
melancholy  remembrance  of  her  I  loved." 

This  year  he  took  his  daughter  to  the  Lakes 
and  left  her  there  whilst  he  took  a  walking  tour 
to  explore  the  famous  Roman  Wall.  He  crossed 
the  kingdom  twice  in  one  week  and  six  hours 
melted  in  a  July  sun.  When  he  rejoined  his 
daughter  near  Lancaster,  he  had  walked  60 1 
miles  in  thirty-five  days — an  average  of  over 
eighteen  miles  a  day.  In  June  1802  the  "His- 
tory of  the  Roman  Wall "  was  published. 

Mr.  Hutton  dedicated  his  work  on  "  The 
Roman  Wall "  to  Mr.  John  Nichols  (of  Literary 
Anecdotes]  who  also  published  it  for  him.  Mr. 
Nichols  quotes  a  letter  from  him  in  which  he 
says  : 


WILLIAM    HUTTON  145 

"  BIRMINGHAM, 

"October  6th,  1801. 
"  DEAR  FRIEND, 

"  I  enclose  for  your  perusal  '  The  History 
of  the  Roman  Wall.'  If  approved  you  are  wel- 
come to  the  work  gratis.  I  wish  it  printed  in 
octavo,  upon  the  best  paper,  and  with  the  best 
letter.  ...  A  bold  type  and  open  words  best 
suit  antiquarian  eyes.  As  plates  ornament  and 
promote  the  sale  of  the  work  I  could  furnish  you 
with  five  octavo  drawings  from  Warburton's  '  His- 
tory of  the  Wall.'  .  .  .  You  will  excuse  the 
liberty  I  have  taken  in  the  Dedication.  I  am  cer- 
tain the  public  will  excuse  you  and  I  think  both. 

"  W.  HUTTON." 

In  closing  the  dedication  Hutton  says  :  "You 
will  also  pardon  the  errors  of  the  work,  for  you 
know  I  was  not  bred  to  letters ;  but  that  the 
Battledore,  at  an  age  not  exceeding  six,  was  the 
last  book  I  used  at  school." 

Mr.  Hutton  ends  his  Introduction  by  saying : 
"  Perhaps  I  am  the  first  man  that  ever  travelled 
the  whole  length  of  this  Wall,  and  probably  the 
last  that  ever  will  attempt  it.  Who  then  will  say 
he  has,  like  me,  travelled  it  twice  ?  Old  people 
are  much  inclined  to  accuse  youth  of  their  follies ; 
but  on  this  head  silence  will  become  me,  lest  I 
should  be  asked  '  What  can  exceed  the  folly  of 
that  man,  who  at  seventy -eight  walked  six 
L 


146   SKETCHES  OF  BOOKSELLERS 

hundred  miles  to  see  a  shattered  wall  !  ' 
W.  H— ." 

He  was  now  in  his  old  age  apparently  as  happy 
as  could  be.  "What  is  a  happy  life,"  he  says  : 
"Suppose  a  man  endeavours  after  health,  and, 
by  a  proper  use  of  his  animal  powers,  can  at  four- 
score walk  thirty  miles  a  day.  Suppose  him,  by 
assiduity  and  temperance,  to  have  obtained  a 
complete  independence,  that  he  can  reside  in  a 
house  to  his  wish,  is  blessed  with  a  son  and 
daughter  of  the  most  affectionate  kind  .  .  .  would 
you  pronounce  this  a  happy  man  ?  That  man  is 
myself.  Though  my  morning  was  lowering,  my 
evening  is  sunshine." 

He  was  never  more  than  twice  in  London  on 
his  own  concerns  :  the  first  was  in  April  1 749,  to 
make  purchase  of  materials  for  his  trade  amount- 
ing to  ^3.  The  last  was  in  April  1 806,  fifty-seven 
years  after,  to  ratify  the  purchase  of  an  estate 
which  cost  £11, 500. *  One  laid  a  foundation  for 
the  other  and  both  answered  expectation. 

In  1807  "The  Monthly  Review," in  reviewing 

1  In  a  letter  to  Nichols,  April  13,  1813,  on  the  subject 
of  Bosworth  Field  he  concludes  by  saying  "  I  purchased 
the  hill,  with  other  contiguous  lands  for  ;£  11,500."  This 
is  doubtless  the  estate  above  referred  to. 


WILLIAM   HUTTON  147 

one  of  his  works,  "A  Tour  through  Wales,"  spoke 
of  him  as  having  "at  length  taken  a  longer  jour- 
ney, the  important  details  of  which  he  will  not 
transmit  to  us  poor  wanderers  here  below."  In 
reply  to  this  he  sent  the  editor  a  poem  "  From 
my  shades  at  Bennet's  Hill,  August  i3th,  1807." 
I  may  quote  a  verse  as  a  sample : 

"  Your  work  for  July  tells  the  world  that  I'm  dead, 
And  have  ceased  to  become  an  inditer. 

But  by  praising  my  book,  it  will  rather  be  said, 
That  you  keep  me  alive  as  as  writer." 

In  1808  he  supplies  a  list  of  all  the  books  he 
had  written  in  thirty  years,  viz.,  "The  History 
of  Birmingham,"  1781;  "Journey  to  London," 
1784;  "Court  of  Requests,"  1787;  "The 
Hundred  Court,"  1788;  "History  of  Blackpool," 
1788;  "History  of  Bosworth  Field,"  1789; 
"History  of  Derby,"  1790;  "The  Barber,  a 
Poem,"  1793;  "Edgar  and  Elfreda,  a  Poem," 
1793;  "The  Roman  Wall,"  1801  ;  "Tour  to 
Scarborough,"  1803;  "Poems,  chiefly  Tales," 
1804;  "Trip  to  Coatham,"  1808  (all  published 
by  Nichols) ;  "Life  written  by  Himself,"  1815 
(published  by  Baldwin). 

At  the  age  of  eighty-two  he  considered  himself 
a  young  man,  and  could  walk  forty  miles  a  day, 


148        SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

but  during  the  succeeding  six  years  he  began  to 
feel  a  sensible  decay ;  nevertheless,  on  Novem- 
ber i  yth,  1812,  when  he  was  eighty-nine,  he 
walked  twelve  miles  with  ease,  and  on  his  nine- 
tieth birthday  he  walked  ten  miles. 

His  daughter1  wrote  a  very  interesting  and 
touching  account  of  his  last  days.  He  died 
September  2oth,  1815,  aged  ninety-two. 

His  daughter  closes  her  account  with  the  fol- 
lowing description  of  him : 

"  My  father  was  nearly  five  feet  six  inches  in 
height,  well  made,  strong  and  active  ;  a  little  in- 
clined to  corpulence,  .  .  .  his  countenance  wore 
an  expression  of  sense,  resolution,  and  calmness, 
though  when  irritated  or  animated  he  had  a  very 
keen  eye.  Such  was  the  happy  disposition  of 
his  mind,  and  such  the  firm  texture  of  his  body, 
that  ninety-two  years  had  scarcely  the  power  to 
alter  his  features  or  make  a  wrinkle  on  his  face." 


1  Miss  Catherine  Hutton  was  a  lady  of  great  literary 
ability.  She  was  a  voluminous  letter  writer  and  the 
author  of  several  novels — a  full  account  of  her,  under  the 
title  "  Catherine  Hutton  and  Her  Friends,"  edited  by  her 
cousin,  Miss  Catherine  Hutton  Beale,  was  published  by 
Cornish  Brothers,  Birmingham,  1895. 


JAMES    LACKIN'GTON,   1746-1815, 


VIII.    JAMES    LACKINGTON. 
1746 — 1815 

IAMES  LACKINGTON  wrote  an 

account  of  the  first  forty-five  years 
of  his  life  in  1791,  a  second  edition 
of  which  was  published  in  1794. 
It  is  from  this  edition  that  I  have  gathered  matter 
for  the  present  sketch.  The  title  is  as  follows  : 

MEMOIRS  OF 
THE  FORTY-FIVE  FIRST  YEARS  OF 

THE  LIFE  OF 

JAMES  LACKINGTON 

THE  PRESENT  BOOKSELLER  IN  CHISWELL  STREET, 

MOORFIELDS,  LONDON. 

WRITTEN  BY  HIMSELF. 

IN  FORTY-SEVEN  LETTERS  TO  A  FRIEND, 

WITH  A  TRIPLE  DEDICATION. 

i.  To  the  Public. 


2.  To  Respectable  i 

3.  To  Sordid 


Booksellers. 


A  new  edition,  corrected  and  enlarged  ;  interspersed 
with  many  original  humoroiis  stories,  and  droll  anecdotes, 
not  in  former  editions. 


ISO        SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

James  Lackington  writes  with  great  facility, 
and  with  no  want  of  vigour,  but  more  than  half 
of  his  bulky  volume  is  made  up  of  flippant 
attacks  on  Methodism,  of  "humorous  stories" 
which  are  not  particularly  humorous,  and  of 
droll  anecdotes,  the  drollness  of  which  consists 
mainly  in  their  indecency.1  Apart  from  these 
distinct  blemishes,  however,  there  is  a  great 
deal  of  matter  in  the  book  which  may  be  re- 
garded as  both  interesting  and  instructive. 

His  earliest  days  were  very  much  like  those 
of  his  contemporary  William  Hutton  (see  Sketch 
No.  VII.) ;  the  one  was  starved  and  shivered  in  a 
silk  mill,  his  father  was  a  sottish  stocking- 
weaver,  the  other  was  the  son  of  a  drunken 
shoemaker. 

Lackington  was  born  at  Wellington,  in  Somer- 
setshire, August  3ist  (old  style),  1746.  Like 
many  other  human  beings,  he  was  inclined  to 
boast  of  the  antiquity  of  his  family,  for,  although 
his  father  was  a  journeyman  shoemaker,  one  of 
his  ancestors  gave  the  name  of  White  Lackington 
to  a  village  in  Somersetshire  where  the  family 

1  The  original  humorous  stories  and  droll  anecdotes 
are  said  to  have  been  furnished  by  the  pen  of  Peter 
Pindar.  (D.N.B.) 


JAMES   LACKINGTON  151 

had  settled.  His  grandfather  was  a  gentleman 
farmer,  at  Longford,  near  Wellington ;  he  was  a 
man  of  considerable  property.  He  bound  his 
son  apprentice  to  a  Mr.  Hordley,  a  master  shoe- 
maker in  Wellington,  with  the  intention  of  setting 
him  up  in  that  business,  but  when  he  had  worked 
a  year  or  two  after  his  apprenticeship  as  a 
journeyman,  he  greatly  displeased  his  father  by 
marrying  Jane  Trott,  a  young  woman  of  "  a  mean 
family,"  and  without  a  shilling. 

Our  hero,  James,  the  first-born  and  hope  of 
the  family,  was  born  in  the  house  of  his  grand- 
mother Trott.  Jane  proved  to  be  an  excellent 
wife  and  a  most  admirable  mother,  and  by  the 
time  she  had  borne  her  husband  three  or  four 
children  the  grandfather  so  far  relented  that  he 
supplied  his  son  with  money  to  open  a  shop  for 
himself;  but  no  sooner  did  he  find  himself  more 
at  ease  than  he  contracted  the  fatal  habit  of 
drinking,  and,  although  his  father  made  several 
fruitless  attempts  to  keep  him  in  trade,  his 
habitual  drunkenness  soon  reduced  him  to  his 
old  state  of  journeyman  shoemaker,  from  which 
he  never  emerged,  and  he  and  his  large  family 
were  involved  in  the  extremest  poverty. 

To  their  worthless  father  the  children,  now 


1 52        SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

increased  to  eleven,  owed  no  debt  of  gratitude, 
while  to  their  good  mother  they  were  indebted 
for  everything.  For  many  years  together  she 
worked  nineteen  hours  out  of  the  twenty-four 
to  feed  her  children  and  supply  her  miserable 
husband  with  drink.  His  drunkenness  short- 
ened his  days,  and  when  he  died  his  family  were 
thankful  that  the  source  of  their  poverty  was 
taken  out  of  the  way. 

For  the  first  few  years  the  father  had  been  a 
careful  hard-working  man,  and  James,  being  the 
eldest;  son,  was  put  for  two  or  three  years  to  a 
day  school,  and  used  to  astonish  several  ancient 
dames  by  his  wonderful  memory  which  enabled 
him  to  learn  chapters  of  the  Bible  on  hearing 
them  read  and  repeat  them  perfectly  though  he 
never  learnt  to  read ;  but  it  soon  came  to  pass 
that  the  poor  mother  could  afford  no  longer  to 
pay  twopence  a  week  for  his  schooling,  and  he 
had  to  take  the  place  of  nurse  to  the  younger 
children.  He  soon  forgot  the  little  he  had  learnt, 
and  instead  of  learning  to  read  it  became  his 
chief  delight  to  excel  in  all  kinds  of  mischief. 

When  he  was  about  ten  years  old,  a  man 
began  to  cry  apple  pies  about  the  streets,  and  he 
thought  he  could  do  it  much  better;  he  was 


JAMES  LACKINGTON  153 

accordingly  sent  to  live  with  a  baker,  and  he 
cried  pies  for  him  so  vigorously  that  the  old  pie- 
man had  soon  to  shut  up  his  shop,  and  he  was 
the  means  of  extricating  his  master  from  em- 
barrassing circumstances  through  the  immense 
number  of  pies  he  sold  for  him;  but  he  soon 
began  to  play  such  tricks  among  the  old  women 
that  the  baker  had  to  discharge  him.  He  then 
had  to  sit  down  and  work  at  his  father's  trade. 

At  the  age  of  fourteen-and-a-half  he  was  bound 
apprentice  to  Mr.  George  Bowden  and  Mrs. 
Mary  Bowden,  shoemakers,  of  Taunton,  "as 
honest  and  worthy  a  couple  as  ever  carried  on 
trade."  They  carefully  attended  their  shop  six 
days  of  the  week,  and  on  the  seventh  they  went 
with  their  family  to  an  Anabaptist  meeting,  where 
excellent  morality  was  taught,  but  little  atten- 
tion was  paid  to  speculative  doctrine. 

During  his  apprenticeship  he  had  as  his  com- 
panions two  of  his  master's  sons;  the  eldest, 
about  seventeen,  had  heard  and  was  converted 
by  one  of  John  Wesley's  itinerant  preachers. 
He  set  about  to  convert  his  parents  and  his 
brother,  and  eventually  James  himself  became  a 
member  of  the  Wesleyan  body — from  which  he 
eventually  broke  away  for  a  long  time,  and 


1 54       SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

henceforth  at  least  one  half  of  his  book  is  filled 
with  sneering,  contemptuous,  and,  as  it  seems  to 
me,  vulgar  and  contemptible  attacks  on  that 
most  respectable  body  of  Christians,  and  espe- 
cially on  John  Wesley  himself.  More  than  once 
during  his  career  was  he  reconverted  only  to 
relapse,  and  it  was  during  these  relapses  that 
he  indulges  in  his  offensive  sarcasms,  which  only 
show  much  crass  ignorance,  abounding  self-con- 
ceit, and  an  assumption  of  superior  knowledge, 
which  he  boastingly  regarded  as  "  broadminded 
philosophy." 

These  dreary  and  needless  discussions  are 
certainly  a  great  blot  on  his  book,  and  in  his 
latter  days  he  was  utterly  ashamed  of  them.  I 
wholly  object  to  him  as  a  teacher  of  "broad- 
minded  philosophy."  He  only  learnt  to  read 
during  his  apprenticeship,  and  to  write  some 
time  afterwards.  When  he  could  read  he  be- 
came a  great  reader;  he  read  every  book  he 
could  get  hold  of.  He  had  an  excellent  memory, 
and  whilst  he  remained  a  member  of  the  Wes- 
leyan  body  he  accumulated  books  suitable  to  his 
profession,  and  soon  considered  himself  quite 
master  of  the  various  arguments  made  use  of  by 
polemical  divines ;  but  gradually  getting  rid  of 


JAMES  LACKINGTON  155 

these  leading  strings,  he  studied  Plato  and 
Seneca,  and  Plutarch  and  Epicurus,  and  other  of 
the  old  pagan  philosophers,  and  all  the  modern 
ones,  such  as  Voltaire,  Tom  Paine,  etc.,  and  so 
he  soon  found  himself  fully  equipped  as  against 
what  he  now  looked  upon  as  the  narrow-minded 
teaching  of  John  Wesley. 

It  does  not  seem,  however,  to  have  been  his 
study  of  philosophy  that  first  caused  him  to 
break  away  from  Methodism.  It  happened  that 
just  about  the  time  when  he  had  reached  his 
twenty-first  year,  and  near  the  end  of  his  appren- 
ticeship, the  election  occurred  of  two  Members 
of  Parliament  for  Taunton,  and  he,  having  ob- 
tained his  freedom  from  his  mistress,  was  soon 
launched  into  the  midst  of  scenes  of  riot  and 
dissipation.  He  had  a  vote,  and  being  as  he 
says  "  possessed  of  a  few  ideas  above  those  of 
my  rank  and  station,  my  company  was  courted 
by  some  who  were  in  a  much  higher  sphere," 
and  "  here,"  he  says,  "  I  had  nearly  sunk  for 
ever  into  meanness,  obscurity,  and  vice,  for 
when  the  election  was  over  I  had  no  longer  open 
houses  to  eat  and  drink  at  free  of  cost." 

It  was  this  dissipated  life  that  first  caused  his 
backsliding,  and  doubtless  the  "  superior  "  learn- 


156        SKETCHES  OF  BOOKSELLERS 

ing  he  got  from  his  philosophical  books  led  to 
his  final  emancipation. 

I  can  find  no  admiration  for  him  as  a  philo- 
sopher, as  he  was  pleased  to  call  himself.  His 
book,  which  contains  over  500  pages  of  text, 
as  I  have  said,  only  brings  down  the  story  of 
his  life  for  forty-five  years.  It  is  so  largely  made 
up  of  scornful  abuse  of  Methodism  and  of  long 
irrelevant  stories,  many  of  them  vulgar  and  in- 
decent, that  it  is  not  easy  to  follow  the  thread 
of  his  life  therein.  The  volume  is  also  brimful 
of  poetical  quotations.  He  seems  to  have  had, 
or  thought  he  had,  the  art  of  finding  an  apt 
quotation  for  every  incident  of  life.  I  will  attempt 
to  dig  out  from  the  great  mass  of  matter  he  has 
written  sufficient  to  give  an  intelligent  sketch  of 
him  as  a  bookseller.  In  this  capacity  he  assuredly 
exhibited  very  great  ability  ;  he  was  honest,  fear- 
less, straightforward,  and  clear  headed.  Starting 
as  a  bookseller,  in  utter  ignorance  of  all  the  old 
rules  and  customs,  and  in  defiance  of  them,  he 
invented  an  entirely  new  system  of  his  own,  and 
in  this  he  persevered,  always  honestly  and  hon- 
ourably till  it  led  him  on  to  fortune.  His  suc- 
cess was  of  course  greatly  due  to  his  own  per- 
severance, but  more  perhaps  to  the  fact  that 


JAMES   LACKINGTON  1 57 

he  had,  accidentally  as  it  were,  hit  upon  a  new 
line  of  operation,  and  success  followed  because 
it  was  new. 

After  some  years  of  wandering  about  the 
country  as  a  journeyman  shoemaker  he  married 
an  old  sweetheart  of  his  boyish  days — one  Nancy 
Smith,  a  dairymaid.  They  were  married  at  St. 
Peter's,  Bristol,  in  the  year  1770-1  :  on  search- 
ing their  pockets  after  the  marriage  ceremony 
was  over  and  the  necessary  expenses  paid,  they 
had  just  one  halfpenny  between  them  wherewith 
to  begin  the  world.  He  laboured  hard  at  his 
trade  as  a  worker  in  stuff  shoes  and  she  earned 
a  few  shillings  weekly  in  binding  them.  They 
worked  together  bravely  and  were  very  happy 
on  a  combined  income  of  los.  or  125.  a  week. 
Soon,  however,  the  wife  fell  ill  and  so  continued 
for  many  months ;  she  suffered  excruciating 
agonies,  with  none  of  the  comforts  of  life  to 
aid  her. 

These  sad  times  of  sickness  and  starvation 
continued  for  more  than  two  years.  At  last, 
with  a  view  to  getting  a  better  price  for  his 
work,  Lackington  resolved  to  visit  London.  He 
reached  the  metropolis  in  August,  1773,  with 
the  traditional  half-crown  in  his  pocket,  and 


158   SKETCHES  OF  BOOKSELLERS 

eventually  found  work  with  Mr.  Heath  in  Fore 
Street.  Notwithstanding  his  previous  back- 
sliding, his  first  inquiry  was  for  Mr.  Wesley's 
"  Gospel  shops,"  and  on  producing  his  class  and 
band  tickets  he  was  duly  admitted.  In  a  month 
he  saved  money  enough  to  bring  his  wife  up  to 
town,  and  it  happened  just  about  the  same  time 
he  received  intelligence  of  the  death  of  his 
grandfather,  who  left  him  £10.  He  started  off 
to  Somersetshire  to  receive  the  money.  On  re- 
turning he  lost  about  i6s.,  seemingly  through  a 
hole  in  his  pocket,  for  he  first  discovered,  while 
travelling  on  the  coach,  some  of  the  silver  drib- 
bling through  the  basket  on  to  the  ground — he 
bore  the  loss  with  the  equanimity  of  a  philo- 
sopher, reasoning  with  Epictetus  that  he  could 
not  have  lost  it  if  he  had  never  had  it,  and  that 
as  he  had  lost  it,  why,  it  was  all  the  same  as  if  it 
had  never  been  in  his  possession. 

But  a  sadder  misfortune  befell  him  on  that 
cold  coach  journey  ;  to  keep  out  the  bitter  cold, 
he  drank  some  purl  and  gin,  which  made  him 
so  drunk  that  the  coachman  put  him  inside  the 
coach  for  fear  of  his  falling  off  the  roof.  He 
there  met  a  jovial  set  who  also  drank  to  keep 
out  the  cold  ;  they  were  in  high  glee,  and  asked 


JAMES  LACKINGTON  159 

him  to  sing  them  a  song ;  he  at  once  complied, 
forgetting,  as  he  says,  that  he  was  "  one  of  the 
holy  brethren." 

By  the  time  he  reached  home  he  had  become 
sober,  though  in  great  perturbation  of  mind  for 
what  he  had  done — so  ashamed  was  he  that 
he  concealed  the  affair  from  his  wife  "  that  he 
might  not  grieve  her  righteous  soul  with  the 
knowledge  of  so  dreadful  a  fall " ;  fortunately, 
before  mounting  the  coach  on  his  homeward 
journey,  he  had  sewn  the  bulk  of  his  fortune  in 
his  clothes.  His  good  wife  ripped  open  his 
clothes  which  contained  the  treasure,  and  with 
a  heart  full  of  gratitude  piously  thanked  Pro- 
vidence for  the  supply. 

With  this  store  of  cash  they  purchased  house- 
hold goods,  and  they  worked  hard  and  lived 
still  harder,  so  that  in  a  short  time  they  had 
a  room  nicely  furnished  with  their  own  goods, 
but  it  fell  out  that  on  Christmas  Eve  they  had 
only  half-a-crown  left  to  purchase  their  Christ- 
mas dinner.  Lackington  says  that  he  often 
spent  in  books  money  which  should  have  gone 
in  buying  food  to  eat.  On  this  Christmas  Eve 
his  wife  sent  him  out  to  buy  their  Christmas 
dinner.  On  passing  a  bookseller's  shop  he 


l6o        SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

espied  a  copy  of  "Young's  Night  Thoughts," 
he  forgot  his  dinner,  down  went  the  half-crown, 
and  he  hastened  home  vastly  elated  with  his 
acquisition.  When  his  wife  asked  him  for  the 
Christmas  dinner,  he  told  her  it  was  in  his 
pocket.  "  How  could  you  think  of  stuffing  a 
joint  of  meat  into  your  pocket  ? "  He  then 
began  to  harangue  on  the  superiority  of  intel- 
lectual pleasures  over  sensual  gratifications.  It 
took  him  considerable  time  and  much  eloquence 
to  convince  his  wife  that  it  was  far  better  to 
feast  on  "  Young's  Night  Thoughts "  than  on 
beef  and  pudding, 

"And  sacrifice  your  dinner  to  your  books." 
It  was  in  June,  1774,  that  Mr.  Boyd,  one  of 
Mr.  Wesley's  people,  told  him  of  a  little  shop 
and  parlour  behind  it  to  be  let  in  Featherstone 
Street,  where  he  might  get  some  work  as  a 
master.  He  decided  at  once  to  take  the  place, 
and  told  Mr.  Boyd  that  he  would  sell  books 
there  also.  For  several  months  he  had  ob- 
served a  great  increase  in  a  certain  old-book 
shop,  and  he  felt  persuaded  that  he  knew  as 
much  about  old  books  as  the  person  who  kept 
it.  He  considered  that,  being  a  lover  of  books, 
if  he  could  but  be  a  bookseller  he  should  then 


JAMES  LACKINGTON  l6l 

have  plenty  of  books  to  read,  which  was  the 
greatest  motive  for  him  to  make  the  attempt. 
His  friend  promised  to  get  the  shop  for  him, 
and  added :  "  When  you  are  Lord  Mayor,  you 
shall  use  all  your  interest  to  get  me  made  an 
alderman." 

The  shop  was  taken  and  opened  on  Mid- 
summer Day,  1774,  with  a  stock  worth  five 
pounds,  in  Featherstone  Street,  St.  Luke's.  He 
was  as  well  pleased  to  see  his  name  over  the 
door  as  was  Nebuchadnezzar  when  he  said :  "  Is 
not  this  great  Babylon  that  I  have  built  ?  "  and 
his  wife  piously  cautioned  him  against  setting 
his  mind  too  much  on  the  riches  of  the  world, 
and  assured  him  that  all  was  vanity. 

Notwithstanding  the  obscurity  of  the  street, 
and  the  mean  appearance  of  the  shop,  he  soon 
found  customers  for  what  few  books  he  had, 
and  laid  out  the  money  in  other  "  old  trash." 
He  borrowed  five  pounds  from  a  fund  which 
Wesley's  people  kept  on  purpose  to  lend  out 
to  such  of  their  society  whose  characters 
were  good — for  three  months  without  in- 
terest. This  sum  enabled  him  to  increase  his 
stock. 

In  this  new  establishment  he  and  his  wife 

M 


1 62       SKETCHES    OF  BOOKSELLERS 

lived  very  frugally  ;  they  dined  on  potatoes,  and 
quenched  their  thirst  with  water. 

They  lived  in  this  street  for  six  months ;  by 
that  time  his  stock  had  increased  from  ^5  to 
^25.  This  immense  stock  he  deemed  too 
valuable  to  be  buried  in  Featherstone  Street, 
so  he  took  a  shop  and  parlour  at  No.  46  Chis- 
well  Street ;  here  he  bade  a  final  adieu  to  the 
gentle  craft,  and  converted  his  little  stock  of 
leather  into  old  books;  his  stock  consisted 
chiefly  of  old  divinity,  and  he  had  a  great  sale 
of  such  books  as  he  approved  of — for  says  he, 
"  such  was  my  ignorance,  bigotry,  superstition 
(or  what  you  please),  that  I  conscientiously 
destroyed  such  books  as  fell  into  my  hands 
which  were  written  by  free-thinkers." 

He  went  on  prosperously  till  September, 
1775,  when  he  was  suddenly  taken  ill  of  a 
dreadful  fever,  and  his  wife  was  seized  ten  days 
after  with  the  same  disorder,  and  she  died  on 
the  gth  of  November.  He  says,  "  she  was  in 
reality  one  of  the  best  of  women,  but  enthusi- 
astical  in  the  extreme,  and  of  course  very  super- 
stitious, but  as  I  was  very  far  gone  myself  I  did 
not  think  that  a  fault  in  her." 

He  continued  in  the  fever  for  many  weeks, 


JAMES   LACKINGTON  163 

and  his  life  was  despaired  of;  his  wife  died 
and  was  buried  without  his  once  having  a  sight 
of  her  :  the  nurses  who  were  hired  to  attend  to 
him  and  his  wife  robbed  him  of  linen,  etc.,  and 
kept  themselves  drunk  with  gin  while  he  lay 
in  bed  ready  to  perish  owing  to  want  of  proper 
care. 

When  he  was  well  enough  to  look  after  his 
affairs  he  found  that  two  of  his  friends  had 
saved  him  from  ruin  by  locking  up  his  shop 
which  contained  his  all. 

Soon  after  he  returned  to  his  shop  he  made 
the  acquaintance  of  Miss  Dorcas  Turton,  a 
young  lady  of  good  family  who  in  days  gone 
by  had  shown  their  goodness  by  dissipating 
large  fortunes  and  estates,  and  Dorcas  was  re- 
duced to  keeping  a  school  to  support  her  father, 
who  had  gambled  away  a  large  fortune  of  his 
own  and  ,£20,000  of  his  wife's. 

This  young  lady  was  immoderately  fond  of 
books ;  who  then  could  be  better  suited  for  a 
bookseller's  wife?  Lackington  proposed,  was 
accepted,  and  they  were  married  January  30, 
1776,  or  little  more  than  two  months  after  the 
death  of  his  first  wife !  To  most  people  this 
would  surely  be  regarded  as  indecent  haste, 


164       SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

but  he  only  remarks  quite  coolly  :  "  Thus  I  re- 
paired the  loss  of  one  very  valuable  woman  by 
the  acquisition  of  another  still  more  valuable." 

Shortly  after  this  he  took  up  the  "  Life  of 
John  Buncle  " ;  and  "  I  know  not,"  says  he,  "  of 
any  work  more  proper  to  be  put  into  the  hands 
of  a  poor  ignorant  superstitious  Methodist." 
The  study  of  this  valuable  work  formed  the 
groundwork  for  a  fresh  attack  on  Methodism, 
which  occupies  above  a  hundred  continuous 
pages  of  scurrilous  abuse  mixed  up  with  nasty 
anecdotes. 

His  new  wife's  extreme  love  of  books  (novels 
chiefly)  made  her  delight  to  be  in  the  shop,  so 
that  she  soon  became  perfectly  acquainted  with 
every  part  of  it,  and  was  a  most  valuable  help 
in  taking  care  of  it  during  his  absence.  He 
now  began  to  buy  parcels  of  books,  and  found 
his  trade  so  rapidly  increasing  in  this  direction 
that  he  was  several  times  so  hard  pushed  for 
cash  to  pay  for  them  that  he  more  than  once 
pawned  his  watch  and  a  suit  of  clothes,  and 
sometimes  he  even  pawned  books  to  pay  for 
others. 

Early  in  1778  Mr.  John  Denis  became  his 
partner,  who  found  money  to  increase  largely 


JAMES   LACKINGTON  165 

the  stock  of  books,  and  the  first  catalogue  of 
12,000  volumes  was  issued  by  J.  Lackington 
and  Co.  in  1779.  After  going  on  very  plea- 
santly together  for  more  than  two  years,  Mr. 
Denis  hinted  that  he  thought  Lackington  was 
making  purchases  too  fast — this  led  to  con- 
siderable warmth  on  both  sides,  and  conse- 
quently they  dissolved  partnership  in  May, 
1780.  They  parted  in  great  friendship,  and 
at  his  death  soon  afterwards  Mr.  Denis  left 
behind  him  the  best  collection  of  scarce,  valu- 
able, mystical,  and  alchemical  books  that  was 
ever  collected  by  one  person. 

It  was  in  this  year  1780  that  he  resolved  to 
give  no  person  whatever  any  credit,  an  innovation 
on  the  ordinary  custom  of  the  trade  which  for 
the  time  caused  him  to  be  much  laughed  at  and 
ridiculed ;  he  was  told  that  he  might  as  well 
attempt  to  build  the  Tower  of  Babel  as  to 
establish  a  large  business  without  giving  credit ; 
but  he  determined  to  make  the  experiment ;  he 
began  by  plain  marking  in  every  book  facing 
the  title  the  lowest  price  he  would  take  for  it ; 
which  being  much  lower  than  the  common 
market  prices,  he  not  only  retained  his  former 
customers,  but  soon  increased  their  numbers ; 


1 66       SKETCHES  OF   BOOKSELLERS 

but  he  had  innumerable  difficulties  to  encounter, 
as  he  would  make  no  exception  whatever,  all  his 
customers,  "  even  the  nobility,"  were  treated 
alike — cash  down,  no  credit.  "There were  not 
wanting,"  says  he,  "  among  the  booksellers  some 
who  were  mean  enough  to  assert  that  all  my 
books  were  bound  in  sheep,  and  many  other 
unmanly  artifices  were  practised,  all  of  which,  so 
far  from  injuring  me,  as  basely  intended,  turned 
to  my  account." 

He  says,  with  perhaps  some  truth,  and  cer- 
tainly with  his  usual  conceit : 

"  In  this  branch  of  trade  it  is  next  to  impos- 
sible for  me  ever  to  have  any  formidable  rivals, 
as  it  requires  an  uncommon  exertion  as  well  as 
very  uncommon  success  for  many  years  together 
to  rise  to  any  degree  of  eminence  in  that  par- 
ticular line.  This  success  must  be  attained, 
too,  without  the  aid  of  novelty,  which  I  find  of 
very  great  service  to  me." 

In  the  first  three  years  after  he  began  the  cash 
system  his  business  increased,  and  the  whole  of 
his  profit  was  expended  in  buying  books,  so  that 
his  Catalogue  in  1784  was  largely  increased;  it 
now  contained  30,000  books,  mostly  of  a  much 
superior  character  to  those  of  his  first  Catalogue. 
He  now  found  a  difficulty  which  he  had  not  fore- 


JAMES  LACKINGTON  167 

seen.  Many  of  his  customers  were  always  ready 
to  buy  from  him,  but  were  not  equally  inclined 
to  sell  to  him  such  books  as  they  had  for  sale  ; 
they  said,  "  Lackington  sells  very  cheap ;  he 
therefore  will  not  give  much  for  what  is  offered 
him,"  he  had  difficulty  in  controverting  this 
heresy,  but  he  at  length  adopted  the  following 
plan  to  put  the  matter  beyond  a  doubt : 

"When  I  am  called  upon  to  purchase  any 
library  or  parcel  of  books  either  myself  or  my 
assistants  carefully  examine  them  and  if  desired 
to  fix  a  price  I  mention  at  a  word  the  highest  I 
will  give  for  them,  which  I  always  take  care  is  as 
much  as  any  bookseller  can  afford  to  give,  but  if 
the  seller  entertains  any  doubts  respecting  the 
price  offered  and  chooses  to  try  other  booksellers 
he  pays  me  five  per  cent,  for  valuing  the  books, 
and  as  he  knows  what  I  valued  them  at  he  tries 
among  the  trade,  and  when  he  finds  he  cannot 
get  any  greater  sum  offered,  on  returning  to  me 
he  not  only  receives  the  price  I  at  first  offered, 
but  also  return  of  the  five  per  cent,  paid  me  for 
the  valuation." 

When  he  was  first  initiated  into  the  various 
manoeuvres  practised  by  booksellers  he  found  it 
customary  among  them,  when  any  books  had 
not  gone  off  so  rapidly  as  expected,  to  put  what 
remained  of  such  articles  into  private  sales  where 
only  booksellers  were  admitted,  and  of  these  only 


1 68        SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

such  as  were  invited  by  having  a  catalogue  sent 
them.  At  one  of  these  sales  he  had  frequently 
seen  seventy  or  eighty  thousand  books  sold  after 
dinner. 

He  was  very  much  surprised  to  learn  on  his 
first  attending  these  sales  that  it  was  common  for 
such  as  purchased  remainders  to  destroy  half  or 
three-fourths,  and  to  charge  the  full  publication 
price,  or  nearly  that,  for  such  as  they  kept  on 
hand  ;  and  "  there  was  a  kind  of  standing  order 
amongst  the  trade,  that  in  case  any  one  was  known 
to  sell  articles  under  the  publication  price,  such  a 
person  was  to  be  excluded  from  trade  sales ;  so 
blind  were  copyright  holders  to  their  own  interest." 

He  adhered  to  this  rule  for  a  time,  but  he  soon 
discovered  that  books  that  would  not  sell  for  six 
shillings  may  still  be  sold  for  three  or  two  shil- 
lings, and  so  in  proportion.  He  adopted  this 
plan  instead  of  destroying  stock,  and  so  disposed 
of  many  hundreds  of  thousands  of  books.  "This 
part  of  my  conduct,"  he  says,  "  though  evidently 
highly  beneficial  to  the  community,  and  even  to 
booksellers,  created  me  many  enemies  among  the 
trade,  some  of  whom  ...  by  a  variety  of  pitiful 
insinuations  and  dark  innuendos  strained  every 
nerve  to  injure  the  reputation  I  had  already  ac- 


JAMES   LACKINGTON  169 

quired  with  the  public,  determined  to  effect  my 
ruin,  which  indeed  they  daily  prognosticated,  with 
a  demon-like  spirit,  must  inevitably  very  speedily 
follow." 

In  Letter  XXXVI.  Lackington  furnishes  some 
curious  information  about  the  relations  of  authors 
and  publishers.  "  Nothing  is  more  common," 
he  says,  "than  to  hear  authors  complaining 
against  publishers  for  want  of  liberality  in  pur- 
chasing their  manuscripts."  He  seldom  pur- 
chased manuscripts  or  published  new  books 
himself.  He  felt  himself  on  that  account  quite 
impartial  in  expressing  the  opinion  that  pub- 
lishers possessed  more  liberality  than  any  other 
set  of  tradesmen  as  relates  to  purchasing  manu- 
scripts and  copyrights,  in  confirmation  of  which 
he  quotes  Dr.  Johnson  :  "  Sir,  I  always  said,  the 
booksellers  were  a  generous  set  of  men." x 

1  Nichols,  in  "  The  Literary  Anecdotes,"  gives  the 
whole  account  thus:  "  Johnson  has  dignified  the  Book- 
sellers as  the  '  Patrons  of  Literature.'  In  the  case  of  his 
'  Lives  of  the  Poets,'  which  drew  forth  that  encomium, 
he  had  bargained  for  200  guineas ;  and  the  Booksellers 
spontaneously  added  a  third  hundred.  On  this  occasion 
the  great  moralist  observed  to  the  writer  of  this  article ; 
'  Sir,  I  always  said  the  Booksellers  were  a  generous  set 
of  men.  Nor,  in  the  present  instance,  have  I  reason  to 
complain.  The  fact  is,  not  that  they  have  paid  me  too 


I/O    SKETCHES  OF  BOOKSELLERS 

We  are  in  the  habit  of  boasting  in  our  own 
days  of  the  very  large  sums  paid  by  publishers 
to  authors,  but  it  may  surprise  some  of  our 
friends  to  learn  that  the  same  spirit  of  large 
liberality  was  not  wanting  more  than  a  hundred 
years  ago.  Lackington  quotes  a  few  of  the 
authors  of  those  days  who  were  not  badly  paid 
by  their  publishers.  "  Mr.  Elliott,  bookseller, 
Edinburgh  "  (presumably  a  forbear  of  the  present 
respected  Andrew),  "gave  Mr.  Smallie  a  thou- 
sand pounds  for  his  'Philosophy  of  Natural 
History '  when  only  the  heads  of  the  chapters 
were  written.  Dr.  Robertson  received  ;£6oo 
for  his  '  History  of  Scotland,'  but  for  his 
'  Charles  V.'  he  received  ^"4,500.  Hume  re- 
ceived ^"5,200  for  his  '  History  of  Britain.'  Dr. 
Hawksworth  received  ^6,000  for  his  '  Compila- 
tion of  Voyages,'  and  I  leave  it  to  any  con- 
siderate person  to  judge  whether  in  paying  so 
enormous  a  price  the  publisher  did  not  run  a 
great  risk  when  it  is  considered  how  great  the 
expenses  of  bringing  forward  such  a  work  must 
have  been."  He  quotes  an  instance,  not  by 

little,  but  that  I  have  written  too  much.'  The  'Lives' 
were  soon  published  in  a  separate  edition,  when,  for  a 
very  few  corrections,  the  Doctor  was  presented  with 
another  hundred  guineas." 


JAMES    LACKINGTON  I/I 

any  means  without  parallel  in  our  own  days,  of 
a  Mr.  R.  who  was  paid  ^£1,600  to  do  work 
which  he  died  without  performing,  having  spent 
the  money,  which  was  not  recoverable. 

Here  is  an  astounding  fact !  "  Many  novels 
have  been  offered  to  booksellers  ;  indeed,  many 
have  been  actually  published  that  were  not 
worth  the  expense  of  paper  and  printing  ;  so  that 
the  copyright  was  dear  at  any  price" 

Ah  !  prophetic  Lackington,  you  must  have 
been  thinking  of  the  Twentieth,  not  the  Eigh- 
teenth Century ! 

Lackington  was  now  in  the  full  swim  of  his 
prosperity,  he  bought  books  by  the  thousand, 
and  even  tens  of  thousands  —  and,  reflecting 
thereon,  he  says  that  he  often  looked  back  with 
astonishment  at  his  own  courage  in  purchasing, 
and  his  wonderful  success  in  taking  money 
enough  to  pay  the  extensive  demands  made 
upon  him.  "  There  is  not,"  says  he,  "  another 
instance  of  success  so  rapid  and  constant  under 
such  circumstances." 

As  was  customary  in  the  eighteenth  century, 
Lackington  issued  immense  quantities  of  Half- 
penny Tokens.  The  following  is  a  description 
of  one  of  them  : 


1/2        SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

Obv.  Bust  to  left,  LACKINGTON,  1795. 

Rev.  Fame  blowing  a  trumpet,   Halfpenny  of  Lack- 

ington,   Allen,  &  Co.,    cheapest  booksellers    in 

the  world. 
Edge.   Payable  at  the  Temple  of  the  Muses. 

"Among  all  the  schools  where  the  knowledge 
of  mankind  is  to  be  acquired  I  know  of  none 
equal  to  that  of  a  bookseller's  shop"  says  Lack- 
ington.  "  A  bookseller  who  has  any  taste  in 
literature  may,  in  some  measure,  be  said  to  feed 
his  mind  as  cooks  and  butchers'  wives  get  fat 
by  the  smell  of  meat."  And  thus  it  was  that  he 
himself  "  grew  fat  and  kicked  "  like  Jeshurun. 
He  kicked  against  the  pricks  of  his  early 
training  in  Methodism,  and  held  himself  to  be 
free  of  all  narrow  creeds  and  dogmas.  "  Mr. 
Wesley,"  he  says,  "told  his  society  in  Broad- 
mead,  Bristol,  in  my  hearing,  that  he  could 
never  keep  a  bookseller  six  months  in  his 
flock." 

Now  that  we  have  landed  him  on  the  full 
stage  of  prosperity,  we  can  but  briefly  trace  the 
remainder  of  his  course.  I  will  quote  here  one 
or  two  of  his  maxims.  "  I  was  obliged  to  be 
pretty  well  informed  of  the  state  of  politics  in 
Europe,  as  I  have  always  found  bookselling  is 


JAMES   LACKINGTON  173 

much  affected  by  the  political  state  of  affairs  .  .  . 
if  there  is  anything  in  the  newspapers  of  con- 
sequence, that  draws  many  to  the  coffee-house, 
where  they  chat  away  the  evenings  instead  of 
visiting  the  shops  of  booksellers  (as  they  ought 
to  do,  no  doubt}  or  reading  at  home.  The  best 
time  for  bookselling  is  when  there  is  no  kind  of 
news  stirring"  "As  I  never  had  any  part  of 
the  miser  in  my  composition,  I  always  propor- 
tioned my  expenses  according  to  my  profits  ; 
that  is,  I  have  for  many  years  expended  two- 
thirds  of  the  profits  of  my  trade,  which  propor- 
tion of  expenditure  I  never  exceeded." 

His  progressive  steps  from  poverty  to  pros- 
perity he  thus  describes :  "In  the  beginning  I 
opened  and  shut  my  own  shop,"  a  year  after  "  I 
beckoned  across  the  way  for  a  pot  of  good 
porter,"  a  few  years  later  "  I  sometimes  invited 
my  friends  to  dinner  off  roast  veal,"  next  in  due 
progress  "  ham  was  introduced,  and  a  pudding 
was  the  next  addition,"  then  for  some  time  "  a 
glass  of  brandy  and  water  was  a  luxury,"  suc- 
ceeded by  a  glass  of  Mr.  Beaufoy's  raisin  wine ; 
as  soon  as  his  two-third  profits  enabled  him, 
"  good  red  port  immediately  appeared."  Lodging 
in  the  country  in  due  time  gave  place  to  a  country 


174   SKETCHES  OF  BOOKSELLERS 

house>  in  another  year  the  inconveniences  of  a 
stage  coach  were  remedied  by  a  chariot. 

"  My  precious  rib  has  ventured  to  declare 
'Tis  vulgar  on  one's  legs  to  take  the  air." 

"  For  four  years  Upper  Holloway  was  to  me 
an  elysium,  then  Surry  appeared  unquestionably 
the  most  beautiful  county  in  England,  and  Upper 
Merton  the  most  rural  village  in  Surry.  So  now 
Merton  is  selected  as  the  seat  of  occasional 
philosophical  retirement." 

By  his  doctor's  advice  he  bought  a  horse  and 
saved  his  life  by  the  exercise  it  afforded  him. 
"The  old  adage,"  he  says,  "'Set  a  beggar  on 
horseback  and  he'll  ride  to  the  devil,'  was 
deemed  to  be  fully  verified,  but  when  Mrs. 
Lackington  mounted  another  horse  people  were 
very  sorry  to  see  people  so  young  in  business 
run  on  at  so  great  a  rate." 

"  It  seems  that  at  last  people  have  discovered 
the  secret  springs  from  whence  I  drew  my 
wealth — some  can  tell  you  the  very  number  of 
my  fortunate  lottery  ticket,  others  are  as  posi- 
tive that  I  found  bank-notes  in  an  old  book 
to  the  value  of  many  thousand  pounds.  .  .  . 
But  I  assure  you  upon  my  honour  that  / 
found  the  whole  of  what  I  am  possessed  of  in 


JAMES  LACKINGTON  175 

small  profits,  bound  by  Industry  and  clasped  by 
Economy" 

For  some  years  he  had  contemplated  going 
out  of  business  on  account  of  his  and  Mrs. 
Lackington's  bad  state  of  health,  but  although 
he  had  no  family  of  his  own,  his  friends  re- 
minded him  that  he  had  about  fifty  poor  rela- 
tions, some  old  and  helpless  and  many  who  had 
justly  formed  some  expectations  from  him,  so 
he  regarded  the  giving  up  of  such  a  trade  as  he 
was  in  possession  of  before  he  was  absolutely 
obliged  as  a  kind  of  injustice  to  those  whose 
ties  of  blood  he  felt  bound  to  relieve  and  pro- 
tect. These  sentiments  are  very  creditable  to 
him,  and  he  seems  to  have  carried  them  out. 

For  the  next  few  years  he  spent  much  of  his 
time  in  travelling  about  the  country  with  Mrs. 
Lackington,  and  enjoyed  life ;  amongst  many- 
other  places  visited  by  him  was  his  native  town 
of  Wellington,  where  he  was  honoured  with  the 
ringing  of  the  bells  during  the  whole  of  the  day 
after  his  arrival;  and  with  a  cordial  reception 
from  the  most  respectable  people  of  the  vicinity, 
who  were  pleased  to  see  that  he  did  not  assume 
the  character  of  a  rich  upstart,  but  noticed  his 
poor  relations  and  friends.  In  Bristol,  Exbridge, 


176    SKETCHES  OF  BOOKSELLERS 

Bridgewater,  Taunton  and  other  places,  he 
amused  himself  in  calling  on  some  of  his  old 
masters,  with  whom  he  had  twenty  years  before 
worked  as  a  journeyman  shoemaker.  He  ad- 
dressed each  with,  "  Pray,  sir,  have  you  got  any 
occasion?"  the  term  used  when  seeking  em- 
ployment. "  Most  of  those  honest  men  had 
quite  forgot  my  person,  as  many  of  them  had 
not  seen  me  since  I  worked  for  them,  so  that  it 
is  not  easy  for  you  to  conceive  with  what  aston- 
ishment they  gazed  upon  me.  For  you  must 
know  that  I  had  the  vanity  (I  call  it  humour)  to 
do  this  in  my  chariot,  attended  by  my  servants ; 
and  on  telling  them  who  I  was,  all  appeared 
very  happy  to  see  me."  Some  of  his  old  friends 
declared  they  had  known  him  for  fifty  years  (he 
being  then  forty-five).  One  old  chap  distinctly 
remembered  seeing  him  many  times  on  the  top 
of  a  six-and-twenty  round  ladder,  balanced  on 
the  chin  of  a  merryandrew  !  but  he  says  the  old 
man  was  egregiously  mistaken. 

The  second  edition  of  "  The  Life  "  ends  with 
the  year  1794,  when  he  was  about  forty-eight 
years  old.  In  1793  he  sold  a  fourth  share  of 
his  business  to  Mr.  Robert  Allen,  who  had  been 
brought  up  in  the  shop.  He  does  not  himself 


JAMES   LACKINGTON  177 

mention  the  removal  of  the  business  from  Chis- 
well  Street  to  Finsbury  Square,  which  seems  to 
have  occurred  about  the  year  1794.  The  shop 
occupied  a  large  block  at  one  of  the  corners  of 
the  square. 

I  learn  from  Mr.  Davenport's  "  Life  of 
Lackington,"  in  a  volume  entitled  "Lives  of 
Individuals"  (Tegg,  1841),  that  Lackington 
"  purchased  extensive  premises  in  Moorfields  at 
the  south-west  corner  of  Finsbury  Square,  and 
fitted  them  up  in  such  a  manner  as  was  never 
seen  before  or  since.  The  shop  was  so  capacious 
that  a  mail-coach  and  four  was  easily  driven 
round  the  counters  when  it  was  opened.  From 
the  shop  to  the  roof,  four  or  five  stories  high, 
ran  a  wide  cylindrical  aperture  surmounted 
by  a  glazed  dome  and  flagstaff.  Every  corner 
of  the  vast  edifice  was  crowded  with  books. 
Its  owner  proudly  called  it  '  The  Temple  of 
the  Muses.'  It  has  recently  been  destroyed 
by  fire." 

Charles  Knight,  who  visited  the  "  Temple  of 
the  Muses  "  in  1801,  when  he  was  ten  years  old, 
gives  an  interesting  description  of  the  building 
— the  broad  staircases,  the  "lounging  rooms," 
and  the  circular  galleries,  etc. 

N 


178   SKETCHES  OF  BOOKSELLERS 

I  find  the  following  in  a  footnote  in  Nichols's 
"  Literary  Anecdotes,"  vol.  iii.  (1812) : 

"  The  Bibliomaniacs  (if  any  such  survive)  who 
recollect  the  contents  of  Mr.  Lackington's  first 
catalogue  in  Chiswell  Street,  and  the  dimensions 
of  his  shop,  would  be  astonished  when  they  first 
visited  the  '  Temple  of  the  Muses '  in  Finsbury 
Square ;  but,  as  Mr.  Lackington  observed  in  the 
motto  on  his  first  carriage :  '  Small  gains  do 
great  things,'  and  in  him  was  exemplified  the 
quotation  very  aptly  selected  for  him  in  more 
than  one  of  his  catalogues :  '  Sutor  ultra  crepidam 
feliciter  ausus.'  As  he  is  still  living,  and  has 
favoured  the  world  with  his  own  memoirs,  I 
shall  only  say  that  he  is  particularly  fortunate  in 
having  for  his  successor  in  business  a  well- 
educated,  gentlemanly  nephew1  and  partners  of 
considerable  talent  and  equal  industry." 

Lackington's  second  wife,  Dorcas,  died 
February  27th,  1795,  and  on  June  nth,  with 
his  usual  promptness,  he  married  a  relative  of 
hers. 

In  1798  he  gave  up  his  interest  in  the  busi- 
ness to  his  cousin  x  George  Lackington  (referred 
to  in  the  above  quotation). 

In  1804  he  published  a  volume  called  "Con- 

1  Davenport  says  '"•>€  made  over  the  whole  of  his 
business  to  George,  one  of  his  cousins  by  the  father's  side, 
to  Mr.  Allen,  and  other  parties." 


JAMES  LACKINGTON 

fessions."  This  work  I  have  only  just  seen ;  in 
it  he  expresses  great  regret  at  having  in  his 
"  Life "  cast  so  much  ridicule  upon  the  Wes- 
leyans. 

Of  his  preface  to  this  work  it  may  certainly  be 
said  that  the  oddity  and  self-sufficiency  are  fre- 
quently much  more  apparent  than  the  modesty 
or  good  sense ;  he  says  : 

"  Several  of  my  friends  have  thought  that  if 
the  following  letters  were  made  public,  they 
might  prove  useful  as  a  warning  to  others  not  to 
fall  into  those  errors  which  had  nearly  proved 
fatal  to  me ;  and  also  as  an  alarm  to  some  of 
those  who  are  already  fallen  into  that  dreadful 
state  of  infidelity  from  which,  by  the  great  mercy 
of  God,  I  am  happily  escaped." 

He  mentions  his  good  wife  Dorcas  very  un- 
generously and  slightingly  as  having  misled  him 
into  reading  "  gay,  frothy  narratives." 

"  I  had  no  sooner  married  this  young  woman," 
says  he,  "than  Mr.  Wesley's  people  began  to 
prophecy  that  I  should  soon  lose  all  my  religion. 
This  prophecy  I  must  confess  was  too  soon  ful- 
filled. I  was  often  prevailed  upon  to  hear  her 
read  those  gay  frothy  narratives,  and  I  began  to 
lose  my  relish  for  more  important  things." 

He  retired  first  to  Thornbury  and  next  to 
Alveston,  in  Gloucestershire,  where  he  erected 


ISO   SKETCHES  OF  BOOKSELLERS 

a  small  chapel.  He  soon  became  a  preacher 
himself  in  the  neighbouring  villages,  and  spent 
his  time  chiefly  in  visiting  the  sick,  relieving  the 
poor,  distributing  tracts,  and  expounding  the 
Scriptures.  In  1806  he  removed  to  Taunton, 
the  town  in  which  he  served  his  apprenticeship, 
and  built  another  chapel  at  a  cost  of  £3,000, 
and  endowed  it  with  ,^150  a  year  for  the 
minister.  In  front  of  this  building  appears  the 
following  inscription : 

"  This  Temple  is  erected  as  a  monument  of 
God's  mercy,  in  convincing  an  Infidel  of  the 
important  Truths  of  Christianity." 

He  subsequently  became  involved  in  a  dispute 
with  the  Conference,  and  he  sold  the  chapel  to 
them  for  ^1,000.  He  removed  to  Budleigh 
Salterton,  where  he  built  another  chapel  at  a 
cost  of  ^2,000,  and  allowed  ^150  a  year  to 
the  minister.  He  died  from  apoplexy,  in  the 
odour  of  sanctity,  November  2 2nd,  1815,  aged 
seventy.  His  remains  rest  in  Budleigh  church- 
yard. 

At  the  date  of  Lackington's  death  in  1815 
my  late  partner,  Sampson  Low,  was  a  youth  of 
twenty,  in  the  house  of  Messrs.  Longman.  I 
have  often  heard  him  speak  of  the  "  Temple  of 


JAMES   LACKINGTON  l8l 

the  Muses,"  and  he  had  seen  Lackington  himself. 
He  seemed  to  have  shared  a  pretty  common 
opinion  among  the  members  of  the  regular  trade 
that  Lackington  was  looked  upon  as  somewhat 
of  a  black  sheep,  but  this  of  course  had  reference 
only  to  his  vigorous  innovations  —  there  was 
never  a  question  about  his  sterling  honesty. 

I  find  that  this  death  of  a  man  known  to  my 
late  partner,  and  who  died  within  a  few  years  of 
my  own  birth,  brings  the  story  of  "  Booksellers 
of  Other  Days  "  too  nearly  down  to  the  present 
day.  If  I  am  to  continue  these  "  sketches "  I 
must  hark  back  for  a  century  or  two. 


SINCE  writing  the  foregoing,  my  attention  has 
been  drawn  to  the  fact  that  the  late  Adam  Black, 
founder  of  the  great  Edinburgh  House,  passed  a 
part  of  his  early  career  in  the  house  of  Lacking- 
ton,  Allen  and  Co.  When  he  first  landed  in 
London,  in  the  year  1804,  a  youth  of  twenty,  he 
had  many  letters  of  introduction  to  London 
houses,  among  others  to  Lackington,  but  he  had 
so  little  desire  to  be  employed  there  that  he  called 
there  last,  and  was  told  to  call  again.  He  was 
not  favourably  impressed,  but  after  calling  there 
two  or  three  times  he  at  last  got  employment  at 


1 82        SKETCHES   OF   BOOKSELLERS 

1 8s.  a  week,  and  remained  there  at  an  increasing 
salary  for  nearly  three  years,  of  itself  a  satisfactory 
proof  that  the  house  of  Lackington  was  of  a  far 
more  sterling  and  reputable  character  than  was 
sometimes  represented  by  its  competitors  in 
trade.  He  gives  an  interesting  description  of 
"The  Temple  of  the  Muses,"  very  much  as 
given  above.  James  Lackington  had  retired 
from  business  before  Adam  Black  entered  the 
house.  See  "  Memoirs  of  Adam  Black,"  edited 
by  Alexander  Nicholson,  LL.D. 


The  above  is  taken  from  a  Lackington  Token,  kindly 
lent  to  me  by  a  descendant  of  one  of  the  Lackingtons, 
Mr.  R.  A.  Lackington,  who  is  now  engaged  in  business  in 
the  house  of  William  Dawson  and  Sons,  Bream's  Build- 
ings. See  page  172. 


CHISWICK  PRESS:  PRINTED  BY  CHARLES  WHITTINGHAM  AND  co. 

TOOKS  COURT,  CHANCERY  LANE,  LONDON. 


UTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACjLITJ 


II    I        I       I'         M         «•'•"'"•' 

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